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Making a map
of the DMZ.
Trip to "resort".
Circle tour of Seoul.
Monday, July 3
Today I will build the website for this log and pictures.
Items:
- Make a map showing the DMZ area.
- Add traditional village and Shingasae to Seoul map.
diagram of 3rd tunnel intercept
http://www.pbase.com/dogwolf/image/18094780
map of the area we visited, Korean official, then at
http://english.tour2korea.com/03Sightseeing
/DestinationsByRegions/depth02.asp
?konum=1&kosm=m3_1&Address=21134&Address2=20157
list of maps then at http://www.geocities.com/yi_sun_shin_adm/KoreaMaps.html
scrollable map of Seoul (needs IE)
http://asp.congnamul.com/seoul/english/map.jsp
building a topo map from google satellite imagery
will then paste on the points of interest
Tuesday, July 4

Today I stayed home and worked some more on getting this log ready to
publish. I finally found a base map (then at http://www.escortmap.co.kr/korea/part02.htm)
showing the location of items from
Kaesong to Yatap, which includes everywhere we are going. The Seoul
maps didn't
cover enough and the Korea maps had too little detail. After various
steps to merge and bleach the maps, I had a workable base.
This afternoon and evening S went off shopping to Dongdaenum, so I had
the computer to myself. I also spent time watching baduk on the telly.
(There is a channel that alternates baduk and infomercials about 3:1.)
Wednesday, July 5
Prices are roughly comparable to the US. Apparently the relatively
higher "cost-of-living" value is because housing here is much more
expensive. In a crowded, mountainous country, space is at a premium.
I bought a one gig memory stick for 40,000 . I found a
street vendor with
cherry tomatoes. When I gestured at them, he starting stuffing them in
a bag. When he got what I thought were enough, I gave him 1000 (Korean won, 1000 is a
little over a dollar). Apparently that was too much, so he stuffed
another handful of tomatoes in the bag. They are good tomatoes. Another
vendor was offering good-looking cherries. We asked for some and he
diligently weighted out a kilo (2.2 lbs). When I offered 1000 he
saw the 10,000 note in my wallet and said that
was the price of the
cherries. We decided instead on a package of three
yellow-with-white-stripes fruit for 2000 . They are
melons, but about the size of apples and with firm flesh.
Beer is 500 for 500 ml (around a pint, two
glasses). That's the same price as a can of Coke in the vending
machines downstairs. But the can is only 250 ml. It's a skinny can and
holds less than the familiar American can at 355 ml.
I don't know why no one simply divides by 1000 and denotes the values
in k . A k value is
close to the value in dollars.
Today I'll do the map of the DMZ trip.
Thursday, July 6
Spent some of the day finding "Panmunjom" on the satellite image.
Finally I found the Wikipedia page that explains that "Panmunjom no
longer really exists. All this is described in a note on the map from Dora to Kaesong. Then I got interested in
reading the satellite image to find the borders of the DMZ. Trickier
than I'd hoped.
S was at a conference for some of the day. I joined her for a talk
(ISC, no conference) by a former chairman of Samsung explaining to us
what a clever guy he was. Then we went to the tail end of the
conference and got invited -- along with all attendees -- to the dinner
that evening. A great feast of Korean food. Raspberry wine. Eel.
Kimchee. Lots of other stuff. Even cookies and various
sticky-rice cakes.
One the way home we saw a drunk. Along came to motor-scooter riders and
they saw him too. Distracted, they crashed into each other and one
scotter ran up on the sidewalk right in front of us. The way the one
rider was lying and moaning on the ground I feared his leg was broken.
When he stood up, I knew my fears were groundless.
Friday, July 7
In the morning I finished up a best guess on the DMZ borders.
In the afternonn we went on an adventure with some of the students. The
event was a visit to a resort where, to Susan, the big
attraction-downside was the chance to sleep on mats on the floor
instead of beds.
It turned out that the resort was a tad the worse for wear. The gradens
were beautifully laid out, but some weeds have gotten in. The rugs were
worn. There were beside tables in the room, so it seemed to me the
reason they had gone the traditional route was because the beds had
worn out. The bedside table was similar to that I wrote of on my
China trip. We searched high and low for light switches and finally
found them on the bedside table! One nice touch was that the
entryway light was triggered by movement, so it would always come on
when you were there. The bathroom had some undetermined source of
leakage so the floor got quite wet.
The best bit was the waterfront area. They offered waterskiing,
waterboarding, and a banana boat. Its inflatable. Two people lie within
and the tow boat moves it fast enough that its geometry creates lift
and it rises above the water. At least, that's what its supposed to do.
The run I saw had two big guys and it never got airborne.
Dinner and breakfast were full out Korean meals. Tasty, spicy, and I
got gas. After dinner there was a barbecue supper. Whole roasted pigs
and bottomless beer. I pigged out. Sigh. The students continued the
evening with dancing in the events building. S and I retired.
Saturday, July 8
The floor was not a nice wooden rustic cabin. Oh no. Hard concrete.
I did not think I slept well. But everyone else complained about the
student's noise and I never heard it. What I did find was that my
muscles tensed up trying to avoid the floor, so I got and stayed hot
and sweaty through the night. I napped in the bus on the way home. We
went grocery shopping to replenish the larder. I took another two-hour
nap.
Sunday, July 9
Today, we had decided, we would take the bus tour of Seoul that lets
you get off at a site and then reboard a later bus. The starting point
is a one-transfer subway ride from KU. The buses are quite nice,
featuring both air-conditioning and recorded commentary in four
languages (C, E, J, and K). I was a bit disappointed that the
commentary was dry and bare bones. Most of the time it was silent and
when it did speak, it gave just a few facts.
The first half of the tour travels south from the city center and
visits lots of places that were interesting to see from a bus, but few
that demanded our presence on the ground. A city gate, the huge
shopping mall at the Seoul station, the US army base, and so on. The
National Museum of Korea beckoned, but it demands a day or three of its
own. We got off, as planned, at the Seoul Tower stop. We lunched, as
planned, although S had not planned on there being nachos, which she
instantly ordered to go with her chocolate cake. I just had a ham
and cheese sandwich; there were no Korean food options at the tower
bottom cafe. (There are pricier eating options atop the tower.)
Finally, we rode the elevator to the tower top. The views were
spectacular. Lots of pictures, but not much to add here.
Our next planned stop was at Changdoekgung Palace, but its English tour
wasn't until 3:30, so we got off and strolled through the park at
Daehangno. It's part of the national arts center and had a marvelously
mixed crowd. Here is a musician sitting, strumming and singing. Here is
another more animated one walking about. Everywhere are people walking,
sitting, looking at each other, and taking in the scene. In this corner
are six jugglers practicing and learning. But now they must move
because a band is setting up. The besuited guy over there is walking
along and talk on his cell. Ahha, now he hangs up and surprises a woman
in the park that he is already there. They leave together. There are
several men stretched out on the benches. Maybe that one is drunk. He
won't disturb the enjoyment of the many families strolling with their
tiny tots. But now the time for the bus is here and so we leave.
The Palace was first built in the fourteenth century, but has always
been wooden so parts burned down every hundred years or so. Lots has
been restored. In fact, the last emperor's family continued to live
there until they died out a few years ago. The palace rooms are the
typical old style with wooden sides that fold out of the way to expose
the rooms to the courtyard. Not at all what those of us accustomed to
mechanically mangled air have come to expect. The nature around has
been as mangled in its own way as the air we breathe today. The gardens
are magnificent, but hardly the way nature would have grown things
without help.
The palace can only be visited in a guided group, so we did the whole
thing. Sadly this lasted until five. We were able to catch a bus soon
thereafter. Our last planned stop was the president's "Blue House." Our
bus, however, was the last to stop there so we could not get off and
explore as we had hoped. We tried to snap from the moving bus, but no
luck was to be had. We rode on back to the beginning, closing the loop,
and took the subway home. Very hot and sweaty from walking through the
palace grounds. We competed to see who would get the first shower, but
S won by simply asking how long I wanted to wait for dinner.
For dinner she cooked the greensw I had picked out at the market. She
has put me in charge of the adventurous food selections. These greens
turned out to be fine; pretty much like spinach.
And now its time to watch the Wimbledon Men's final and hit the hay.
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