The best news of the week is that Patti bought her ticket to come and visit. She arrives on Thursday, March 26. We’ll spend a few days in Seoul, a few days in Daejeon, and probably a few days not knowing or caring where we are.
This Friday I went to the Municipal Arts Complex. It is a new, modern facility just this side of the Expo Park. There is a large performing arts center there (the Daejeon Culture and Arts
Center), the Municipal Museum of Art, and a second, smaller museum dedicated to the works of Ungno Lee. Lee was a Daejeon artist who is apparently well known in France. Both museums are human-scale (meaning not the Louvre.) It is amazing how much faster you can get through an
art museum when you can’t read any of the signage. When I got home, I discovered that I have a mailbox in the lobby and that it contained three pieces of mail: an ad for some kind of quilted
luggage, an offer for credit if I want to buy a house or car, and something that looks suspiciously like a bill. I’ll have to take that into work to find out what it’s for.
Late Friday afternoon JJ Cho from the International Affairs and Education Office dropped by to deliver a cell phone that the City is providing me. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I suppose it is good that people can get in touch with me if they need to, especially since I’m only in the office three days a week. And it’s nice to have something I can use in an emergency, such as if I get lost or lose the key to my apartment (a rather constant worry.) On the other hand, I rather liked the feeling of being untethered. Now, even when I’m out walking around, people can get in touch with me. Of course, that may end my weekend isolation. Perhaps my phone will be ringing non-stop: “Want to go hiking? Bicycling? A baseball game? How about some sushi?” So far, though, I have only received annoying spam text messages in Korean.
On Saturday I took the bus to the Asia Museum, which is in the Daedeok Valley on the far side of town. When I got on the bus I showed the driver a map and told him where I wanted to get off—the Daedeok Valley IC, whatever that is. Fortunately, he seemed to know. It was a long ride, about forty minutes, and then he stopped at a bus stop and indicated for me to get off. I crossed the highway and sure enough, there was a sign for the Asia Museum, 1000 meters up a winding
dirt road. The museum is featuring an exhibit of the works of Cho Young Nam, an artist and singer who, in some of his pictures, bears a disturbing resemblance to Kim Jong Il. I actually liked his work, which was abstract, playful, and varied. I wandered through all of the galleries, taking my time—the only other visitors were two police officers who were either off duty or looking for art thieves. When I was finished, a young museum guide who spoke virtually no English insisted on giving me a tour of the exhibit. So we revisited everything I had just seen, this time with a thorough Korean explanation. Occasionally she would type a word into her cell phone/camera/dictionary and show it to me to read: “Flower.” “Firecracker.” “Loess.” On the way home I saw what I think might be a bowling alley.
Then I walked around my neighborhood and found a place where people were baking toast.
Sunday I tried the subway. There is a stop less than a block from my building, so I figured I needed to learn how to ride it. (Unfortunately, there is only one line—east and west—but if it goes where you want to go, it’s the way to go.) It turns out that taking the subway is easier than taking the bus. There are maps with all the stops marked in Korean and English, and even little tv monitors on the subway that announce in written and spoken Korean and English what the next stop will be. In between the tv displays advice on good subway behavior.
So I took the subway to Yuseong, the spa district. One of the guide books I read said that going to Korea and not visiting a spa is like going to Korea and not eating kimchi. Unthinkable! (Another similarity—they both make you sweat.) Anyway, Yuseong is apparently built above some hot springs. All the hotels there (and there are many) have spas that the general public can access for a small fee. I picked one at random, went into the lobby, and asked the desk clerk (who conveniently spoke a little English) what to do. He guided me to the counter where I paid the spa entrance fee and got my ticket. The spa for men at this particular hotel was on the second floor; the women’s spa on the fourth floor. (This is Korea, after all. No naked mingling.) I hiked up the stairs to the second floor, went into the spa lobby, took off my shoes, put them in a little shoe locker, took the key from the shoe locker and handed it, along with my receipt, to the spa attendant. He took them and handed me a key to a big locker. I took off my clothes and locked them up. Then I headed into the spa room itself.
This particular one featured shower stalls where everybody rubs and scrubs; rows of little squat down washing stations where everybody scrubs and rubs some more; and four pools: cold, warm, hot, and dangerous. I tried them all, passed up the sauna rooms, and just hung out for about an hour and a half, relaxing and perspiring. It’s not a bad way to spend part of an afternoon, especially after a long morning run. Sorry, no pictures from inside the spa.
No comments:
Post a Comment