I suppose you may need a little background on the Demilitarized Zone, so here goes. After the Korean War, a Military Line of Demarcation was drawn, breaking the Korean peninsula in half. In the northern half, the Chinese and the Soviets supported the communist regime of the Eternal President Kim, Il-Sung. In the southern half, the United States supported a democratic system. To ensure a minimum of incidents, a buffer of two kilometers was instituted on either side of the Line of Demarcation. This is the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, and it is about as close as you can get to North Korea without actually going there.
The DMZ is a very interesting, but very odd place. Can you think of another place in the world that symbolizes so much suffering and loss of life, yet features not only frequent bus tours, but an amusement park at the place the buses leave from? The air is thick with tragedy, especially near Freedom Bridge, where fences are lined with bows and flowers and pictures of long-lost loved ones and a bombed-out, bullet hole-studded locomotive stands silent guard. Yet there are colorful cartoon characters adorning walls and even a slightly whimsical piece of sculpture formed from the letters DMZ.
Odd, indeed. The two ladies in the picture with me are Ah Young, who helps me struggle through Korean lessons every Saturday at Talkholic, and Melissa, a friend I met through Ah Young. They invited me on their journey with them… or did I invite myself? It’s hard to remember. Anyways, the highlight of the DMZ is a horribly claustrophobic little tunnel that runs about 70 meters underground. This was discovered in the early ‘70’s and was an apparent attempt by North Korea to tunnel under the DMZ and invade South Korea. Now, though, it’s filled with chattering tourists. It’s a long trek to the bottom (and longer to get back up) but the experience of mucking through an invasion tunnel built to accommodate much shorter men than I is one I certainly won’t soon forget. And my calves still remember racing Ah Young back to the top… ow. We did not, unfortunately, get to the Joint Security Area (see blog post #2); that will be an adventure for another day.
From the DMZ we went for a brief excursion to Heyri Art Village, a magical little land where trees grow through walls and giant purple see-through teddy bears stand ready to be hugged… or punched. This is a place that demands a day rather than an hour, but it bears mentioning (see what I did there?).
After Heyri, it was bibimbap time. Bibimbap, for those uninitiated in its simple joys, is basically a Korean salad with rice, vegetables, and chili paste. And it is supremely tasty. After bibimbap, it was Seoul time. Specifically, Hongdae, a massive student/party zone filled with shiny lights and unintended non sequiturs on English language signage. We parked in the parking garage of one of the giant apartment complexes that litter the landscape here – Ah Young’s friend gave us the express permission to use his building’s garage – and drank DMZ makggeoli (a delicious, sweet, milky rice wine, pronounced MACK-go-lee) as we trekked to the subway. This particular makggeoli is rather famous, in fact: it is so good that Kim, Jong-il has it specially imported for his own consumption. I must say, the man does have good taste in makggeoli. On the subway, we bade goodbye to friends Danielle and Daniella, who accompanied us to the DMZ but were too tired to continue the journey. We arrived at the Hongik University subway stop, where I’ll begin my writing exercise for this post, entitled:
***
BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY, OR BOOZE BRINGS US TOGETHER
***WARNING WARNING Events in this story have been retooled to streamline the narrative. As a result, we come off as raging alcoholics with no place in civilized society. Sorry about that. No names have been changed, as no one involved herein is an innocent. Leastways, not anymore. END WARNING YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***
I take a huge swig of the stuff.
“I must take a picture! White people drinking makggeoli in the street!” Ah Young says.
“Is that… not normal?” I ask.
“Korean people don’t even drink it in the street,” she says.
“They do now.” I hand her the bottle, still open.
“Makggeoli stop!” she says, then stops cold while we keep walking, Melissa and I, for a few seconds before noticing.
We are in Seoul. It’s my first time in this particular city, and we’re strolling through Hongdae in search of… something. Going to a jazz bar has been discussed, and there are many to choose from. But for right now, staring at the garish lights and amazingly blunt signs (SEXY PARTY! proclaims a banner suspended precariously over a crowded street) while guzzling milky rice wine from a 7-Eleven is more than enough.
“I think we need more,” Melissa says, giving a disapproving look at the empty bottle, our third of the night. “I’m not feeling it yet.”
“I am,” I say, no doubt looking like a fool, what with the perpetual grin of the tipsy plastered on my face.
“I know,” she says.
Our goal is, as near as I can tell, this: to find a place or two to bunker down and drink something while listening to music, dancing to music, or both. But we are in no hurry: none of us have been to Hongdae before, and it is infamous for its party atmosphere. Tonight, one of the first truly warm nights of the young spring, Hongdae is hopping.
“Makggeoli man!” Ah Young exclaims, pointing out a man pushing a rickshaw through a crowd of revelers waiting at a cocktail pickup window. The bar is selling cocktails in what appear to be colostomy bags to folks on the street. I’m reminded of Capri Sun, the juice I used to bring for my lunch in middle school.
Ah Young runs up to the man with the rickshaw, which is laden with extra large bottles of makggeoli, and starts speaking rapidly in Korean. I pick up numbers at this point, and that’s about it, but the Makggeoli Man tells Ah Young that, for us, it will only be three thousand won for two massive bottles. A steal. Ah Young tells us it’s because he likes us, and I wonder how we made such a good impression so quickly.
We wade through the line of people waiting for their colostomy cocktails and notice that the man gave us about fifteen Dixie cups in our bag with the bottles. A luxury, after swigging straight out of the bottles all night, though we wonder why he did this for a second before it hits me.
“We have to share!” I say.
I grab the cups and fill one up for myself. Then I hold the cups up and shout “Anyone want some makgeolli?”
This is the way to make friends on the streets of Hongdae. Almost immediately a group of three Australian girls waves us over.
“We need a drink!” One of them says. "I feel like we’ve been waiting here for hours.” I look at the line behind them, and how far they have to go, and conclude that she may not be too far off. Apparently cocktails in a bag are just that good.
I distribute the cups and Melissa pours for the three girls, who thank us pleasantly, while Ah Young tells them that we are from Daejeon and visiting for the weekend and it is our first time in Hongdae. Names are introduced in a blur; everyone knows we’re not expected to remember. After one or two more Dixie cups are filled with rice wine and made empty again, we bid goodbye. One of the girls tells us that they were just starting to get desperate for a drink when we showed up out of nowhere, and calls us her Magical Makgeolli Mates. Fifteen minutes later, after a stop off at a food stall for some noodles and deep-fried Korean pancake, we see them again and she waves us over with the same moniker. We fill their cups one more time before wandering off into the night.
We eventually settle on a place called the Gorilla Bar, a very sweaty but very free bar/dance club with sign out front informing us that ALL HORNY PEOPLE are WELCOME. I wonder if people who don’t have much in the way of a sex drive are also welcome. Eunuchs like to dance too, don’t they? The night becomes a blur of thumping bass and temporary friendships formed with smiles, clinking bottles, and a few words drowned out by the K-Pop. In the morning, Ah Young will wake us after four hours of sleep, chipper and ready to go, and I will fall face first off the top bunk in our hostel room and lie shirtless on the floor, contemplating the virtues of going back to sleep on the cold hardwood.
It was totally worth it.
***
Ridiculous, I know, but it’s probably more fun than reading a fictionalized account of the DMZ tour, or anything from the slow, sleepy Sunday we had. Speaking of Sunday, it involved a trip to Itaewon for a halfway decent hamburger (or veggie burger, in Ah Young’s case), some new shades for yours truly and an excursion to Deoksugang, a palace near the heart of Seoul with the National Museum of Art inside it. The palace was gorgeous and much of the art exhibit quite beautiful, too, but even thinking about it makes my eyelids start to droop in anticipation of sleep. After a day of forcing ourselves into having high spirits and pretending we had energy, we drove back to Daejeon, tired and sore and satisfied.
This is pretty much the kind of experience I wanted to have while I was in Korea. New friends, new places, and adventures ranging from the well-planned (DMZ) to the ill-advised (obviously…). The travel bug is back; it’s crawled under my skin, laid its gloriously restless little eggs, and they’re beginning to hatch. And I can’t wait for more…
No comments:
Post a Comment