Seoul Stealers

As we depart China we leave the hospitable Nine Super Happy Dragons of the Golden Universe Hostel and some of the best nights I have yet experienced on this trip.  That being said, our layover in South Korea may be one of the best adventure stories I have had to date on this trip.  I take you to Incheon International Airport at 15:30 on Monday, September 3, 2012.

At 15:30 we land in Incheon and Adam decides we have just enough time to go explore the area for a while before catching our connecting flight to Hanoi.  He assembles those who want to go and we all speed walk out of the airport as we need to be back and boarding at 17:00.  That leaves us with 1.5 hours to goo explore at the beach that Adam says we should go check out.

After filing out of the airport, we come to the cash exchange ATM where we are recommended to get about USD 10 for dinner or anything else we could spend it on in this short amount of time.  I walk up to the ATM where Adam is struggling to get it to work.  I am the first student on the scene and when he goes to figure his card out, I decide to jump on the opportunity to use the ATM to get USD 20 out for Trent and myself so as to be quick and not hold up the line for others.  I begin my transaction when the taxi driver that Adam has already hired walks up and tells me I am doing it wrong.

“No, no, no!” he says as he begins cancelling out of my transaction for me.  He restarts it himself going so far as to insert my debit card back into the machine for me.  He hits a few buttons as I look on dumbfounded by what is happening in front of me.  I am in my adrenaline-filled go mode so I do not give the whole thing much thought, simply telling him “20 US.”  “Okay, okay,” he says as he hits another button before I get to see what it says.  He leaves me to enter my PIN.

After finishing up the transaction, I think that the machine is broken as it does not dispense my money right away.  I turn to Adam asking what happened during his transaction, wondering if the same might be occurring to me but before I can finish my question, the machine spits out the cash.

The look on Adam’s face when I turn around with my wad of cash is one of shock and amazement mixed with a hint of horror.  “You have about USD 300 right there Wes!” he says to me as I fan out thirty 10,000 won bills, “Looks like you are treating!” 

I flip through the money wondering how this could be.  Adam figures it out later.  The taxi driver assumed I was paying for the taxis and wanted me to get out the money to cover all of them.  I had fallen into the dumb tourist role and trusted the random Korean man who had told me I was doing it wrong.  Luckily I had enough to cover it in my account and Adam told me he would figure out paying me back and getting money from the rest of the group. 

I move past the money deal, trusting that Adam will come through with his promise.  We are herded over to the taxis and we are told to put all of our bags in one van as we file into the three other vans that are waiting alongside the luggage van.  Some also get to ride along with the bags and I trust that they will care for our precious cargo.

After all of us students have piled into the vans, Adam walks up to the head cab driver, a husky Korean man with a cigarette hanging from his lips.  Adam begins angrily speaking Korean at the driver, violently gesturing toward our vans.  I gather from the nonverbal cues and comments I had heard earlier that we were all supposed to fit into three cabs rather than four, thereby reducing the cost significantly.  Whatever Adam said did the trick and we sped off in four vans.

We engage in small talk with the driver of our van for a bit as we head to who knows where, running red lights down the empty road the entire way.  We finally arrive at a beach that I later find out from Adam is the Yellow Sea.  We putter along the beach for a bit when Howard, Bagheera and I exchange a knowing look.  We need to get in the water.  We begin to strip down and without towels, swimsuits, or anything holding us back, we sprint into the Yellow Sea and dive in.  The water is warm and extremely salty.  The salt stings our eyes as we swim out a ways into the water to meet Ellie Jo and Amanda who have already beaten us to the water. 

After this, a majority of the group jumps in after us and we swim around for a while.  Howard rescues a miscellaneous boot from the gentle waves and we decide that it is time to get food.  We walk up the place Adam suggests and meet Zach O and Katryna who have already started cooking their barbecue.  We order the same and begin frying our thick, short slabs of bacon on the foil-wrapped grill as we examine the various toppings that come with our meal.  Adam comes up and suggests we try soju and another traditional Korean drink.

We finish our food and drink, pay, and begin sprinting back to our vans, barefoot and wet.  We cram into our van, trusting that the others will grab our bags out of their van when we arrive at the airport.  When we get out near our terminal, Trent hands him the money that Adam gave him for the taxi.  The driver says that it is 20,000 won more and not thinking, Trent and I split the excess and pay the man.  Later we discover that we paid more than the deal Adam had worked out before.  Once again, we were conned by the Korean cabbies.

We dash back into the airport and search for Adam’s van, the one that has all of the baggage in it, the one that did not stop where the rest of the vans let out.  We search almost frantically before we find that they have already gotten off and they have our bags guarded by the terminal we need to be at.  We work our way back through security as quickly as possible and make it to our gate with plenty of time to spare.

While it may have been the most expensive hour and a half adventure I have ever had, it was well worth it. As I sit on the plane in salt-encrusted shorts, I realize a few things.  I have now learned not to trust Korean taxi drivers with my ATM transactions and to always know the deal that Adam has made before paying anyone.  The price of an adventure cannot always be measured in a form of currency, but in the memories it leaves with you and the people you experience them with.

The Micke¥ Mao Club

The Micke¥ Mao Club

One country down, many more to go.  Round two brings the group to Beijing China.  Beijing is a quick flight from Ulaanbaatar and they are in the same time zone so we make the transition fairly easily.  Unfortunately, our service project has fallen though so we only have class.  On the plus side though, this gives us plenty of time to explore the city with our free time and to see some of the more famous sites of Beijing.

Tuesday is our first full day after we land late on Monday night.  We are given the day off of class instead of our normal Wednesday off that week so we set out exploring.  We have no idea what is in the surrounding area so we look at a map. There is some body of water near us that appears to be a lake so a small group of us sets off to find it by plugging a nearby geocache into my GPS and seeing if we can find it when we get there.  We found the geocache but the water was much more difficult.  We ended out at a nice place with some benches where we were able to get some reading done.

After a little reading, we went exploring and found a street market where I was able to haggle my way into getting a lighter with Chairman Mao’s face on it for a couple dollars.  I became the haggle master of that market, getting good deals for anyone who asked me.  I was even able to recall a price I had given and offer a cheaper one after I realized that I could get it for less.  Those vendors didn’t know what hit them.  To cap off the night, I grabbed a skewer of deep fried scorpions that were living moments before.  A day well spent.

The next day, we went to the Great Wall and had class atop the wall.  The sheer length of the wall was amazing and luckily we had a little bit of time on the wall to actually explore rather than just having class the whole time,  Despite the majesty of the wall and the beautiful hike up to it, I could not help but feel like I was in Disneyland.  Maybe it was the garbage cans disguised at tree stumps, the many vendors selling cheap trinkets all the way up to the trail, the toboggan slide from the wall down to the trailhead, or the chairlift that you could take up to the wall so as to forgo any work that might be required to get up,  Whatever  it was, it made me feel like it was in Disney’s new Mulan Zone in California Adventure or something comparable.  What really pushed that over the edge was the number of people jumping into the middle of our class to get a picture with all the white people sitting on the wall.

That feeling of Disney-ness did not go away for a majority of the time we were in China.  The next day we went to Tiananmen Square to do our travel writing class.  We were required to sit and people watch for half an hour and write about what we saw.  The people I saw seemed even more touristy than our group even though many of them were local Chinese.  They walked around with MP3 players that had preloaded tours on them and they followed around guides waving little colored flags.  Some people I saw even took over half an hour arguing over some map, probably trying to decide what tourist destination to head to next.

Later that week, we went to visit the embalmed body of Mao.  This may have been the epitome of the Disney feeling while I was in China.  The visit seemed like a visit to a Disney character with more rules.  No open toed shoes and passports were required.  Vendors sold flowers outside that could be placed at the base of the statue in the foyer.  We were forced to walk silently through the many chambers of the building and all smiling or joy was highly frowned upon.  When we left, it seemed like I should be awarded a patch or pin or some other trinket that proudly proclaimed “I’ve seen a communist leaders dead body!”  Maybe they would give me a play passport that I could also get stamped at Ho Chi Minh’s, Stalin’s, and Lenin’s bodies as well.

I was finally able to escape the tourism when I went exploring with the male Alexs.  Bagheera found a place that was supposed to have great Peking duck that was a decent distance away from where we were staying.  It was perfect because we figured that not many others from our group would wander that far off so we could enjoy our meal in peace.  When we got there though, we realized that we did not want to spend that much money on dinner.  With that we went exploring for cheaper food.

We turned off the main street and found an interesting little area that was not quite and ally and not quite a parking lot.  There were a few stores and a bunch of food vendors there.  After making our way down to the end, we decided on a place that had skewers simmering in a type of hot pot.  We indicated to some noodles and filled our plastic wrapped plates with some of the skewers and veggies.

Little did we know that the skewers had been brewing in lava.  We quickly ordered a round of Yanjings to quench the fire.  The soy beans provided some relief but ultimately we left the establishment with scorched tongues.  As we passed the corner market, we stopped in to grab a round of honey milk tea which happens to be the absolute best thing to help beat the heat.

As we headed back to the main road, we noticed a couple in the middle of the intersection.  While it was odd that they were standing in the intersection in the middle of traffic, what they were doing was even more attention grabbing.  They were burning what we later found out to be fake money by the ream in small rings scratched into the pavement.  When they deemed they had burnt enough in that ring, they created another and started the process all over again.  Fascinated, we sat on the curb and unabashedly watched them along with some elderly gentlemen in undershirts who were smoking nearby.  After many pictures and an idea for a Concordia Courier article, we decided to explore some of the hutongs before heading back to our hostel (The Nine Super Happy Dragons of the New Golden Universe Hotel). 

As we wove our way through the narrow allies, we realized that this couple was not unique.  We found dozens of other people also burning piles of fake money all throughout the city.  Baffled, we did not know what was happening.  None of our speculations seemed to make much sense so we just walked around in awe of what we were seeing. 

We managed to accomplish our goal of getting lost after a few minutes so we decided to grab a Mons beer and sit and talk.  When we decide we should head back, the general consensus is that there is no better way to go home than by tuk-tuk.  Bagheera hails one for us and the three of us cram in.  About five minutes later, we find ourselves back at our hostel, elated and bewildered by the fact that we were so close yet so lost.  After walking around Beijing all day, our direction skills had not quit us!

This night alone made up for the slight disappointments we had earlier in our stay.  The lines of traveler and tourist began to blur when we realized that we could be so close to home but so lost that we might as well have been on the opposite side of the city.  The high and mighty travelers could not find their hostel and had to resort to the business card taxi trick, even for a walk that would have taken no time at all.  In the end, China left us with many great memories, great haggling skills, and a checked ego.  Two countries down and still many more to go.

The Fellowship of the Ger

After a long two weeks of teaching and an exhausting and stressful gala performance that involved me dancing to “Seasons of Love,” we were ready for a break.  Our final days in Mongolia were to be spent exploring the eastern region of Mongolia on a van tour and horse trekking.  We packed ourselves up and prepared to leave the next morning.

Our group is so large that we must divide in half so that the tour can accommodate us with their horses.  It is Thursday morning and half of our group has already gone.  Three Russian –made tour vans that look like a hybrid between a Volkswagen van and a Jeep drive up outside of our courtyard and wait for us to pile in.  Our guides get out and introduce themselves.  They will be going everywhere with us and explaining the local culture to us.  Our group will be going sightseeing first as the others have gone ahead to start their horse trek. 

Our first sightseeing stop brings us to what some call the Big Chinggis Statue.  The name pretty much describes the sight.  Others call it the Golden Whip because, you guessed it, the silver statue is holding a golden whip.  The statue truly is gigantic and it seems very out of place in the near empty countryside that surrounds it.  You can actually go into this statue and there is a museum inside.  None of us go in deciding that the 4,500 togrog (USD $3) is too expensive.  We have tightened our money belts and we are trying to hold out for whatever spending opportunities may come up on our adventure.

After detouring to the Chinggis statue, we drive back a ways to get on track toward our trekking destination.  On our way, we pull over to the side of the road to have a picnic lunch of a type of salami, bread, cheese spread, cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, jam, butter and tea.  We finish off our meal with cookies that are absolutely wonderful.  After eating, we teach some of the guides and van drivers how to throw a Frisbee.  After a couple hours of this, we pack up our things and head on to our next destination.

We get to quickly explore a few more stops on the way to our final destination.  The first one is a cave that persecuted Buddhist monks hid out in for over 100 days.  Another was a place called Turtle Rock which was a large rock that was supposed to look like a turtle.  I could not see the resemblance but the connection to Concordia’s Turtle Rock area made it worth it.  Next we stopped at a Buddhist temple that we barely had any time to see.  Our guide Beck whom I had gotten to know fairly well at this point wanted to show me the temple at the top of the hill so we sprinted up the steps to go see it.  He showed me some of the artwork that exemplified the Red branch of Buddhism that he was explaining to me earlier.  On the way back down I was able to share what I believed about Christianity with him.

Our final stop was the entrance to a valley that almost looked like it was taken out of the Alps.  We stopped at an ovoo where Buddhists and other Mongolians walked around a pile of rocks and prayer flags three times adding a rock each time.  The guides seemed perplexed as to why many of us were disinterested with this unique experience, not knowing that we were Christian and that many of us had seen ovoos earlier that week on our way to the Gobi desert.  Some members did walk though offering stones in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We were in the home stretch.  With no more stops we were headed straight for our campsite.  At least that was the assumption until we came to the XXXXXXXXXX River.  There was more rainfall this year so the river was higher than normal.  Our drivers in their van-Jeeps were confident in their abilities to cross this over swelled river.  Trent and I decided to walk across it because… why not? The first van made it across just fine and Trent and I greeted them on the other side.  Then the second van started across. 

They started across just fine in the same path taken by our first van but then stalled before making it even halfway across.  They managed to back all the way out eventually, almost running over some of the team members who came out to help push!  Eventually, they found a path further down the river that the third van also followed.  We met up with the other van and finished our journey to the camp.  We had dinner and went to sleep in our ger.

The next day we woke up after getting to sleep in for a while.  After breakfast, we were given the option of doing pretty much whatever we wanted.  Some of us did chores for a while which included scooping poop, chopping fire wood, and helping cook lunch.  When we needed a break, a group of us went out into the hills to read and get away from the group for a while.  When we returned, it was time to watch the local men butcher dinner which was a sheep and a goat from the herd.  Their technique was extremely interesting and surprisingly blood free.  After an authentically prepared dinner, I gave my first SHOUT message to my peers around a campfire by the river.  With that our free day was complete.

The net day we set out for our trek.  I was given a midsized tan horse with a tangled mane that almost looked like dreadlocks.  I decided to name my horse Zion after Zion Thompson of The Green.  Zion was a good horse who did not get too worked up about anything and was content to just ride along with the pack and follow his buddies Shadowfax (ridden by Alex), Noodles (ridden by Dana), Jonah (ridden by Bagheera), or Hunter (ridden by Ben).  Our group felt very much like a band of Middle Earth inhabitants off to throw a piece of metal into some lava.  When we stopped for lunch, we taught some of our guides how to throw a frisbee and Kristine ate a living grasshopper, beginning a long trip of food challenges.  We arrived at the site where we were going to spend the night and set up our tents.  After a warm dinner and a long night of singing hymns and patriotic songs interspersed with a few pop hits such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Country Road with our guides, we retired for the night.

The next morning, we were given the opportunity to go galloping if we wanted too.  Many of us jumped at the chance and waited eagerly throughout breakfast for the time to come.  I hoped that Zion would be up for galloping since the day before he seemed content with just sauntering behind his pals in a very laidback manner.  Zion performed like a champ.  He galloped right alongside the best of gallopers for a long time until I wore him out.   Then we moseyed back to the ger camp far behind most of the group, giving me time to actually think and be away from the others for once.  Once we reached the camp, we packed up the vans and prepared for the bumpy ride back to the dorms for our last night in Mongolia (which we spent tiling tables with pliers and laminating others with Disney Christmas tarps).  What a way to end the first country on this exciting journey.

Gobi, Gobi, Howl-lelulia

The Gobi Desert.  A place often viewed with mystery and intrigue.  A place many have heard of and few visit.  A place only a few hours from where our group is staying… at least that is what they tell us.

A little more than a few  hours later, we arrive at Banyan Gobi, a fairly plush ger camp on the edge of the Gobi desert.  It is a quaint little camp that consists of about 30 gers and a bath house.  There are herds of sheep and goats calmly grazing in the pasture nearby.  Many of us felt the call of the wild as soon as we arrived.  After dropping off our gear in our gers a group of us headed off into the dunes. 

The Gobi is not as arid as I had initially thought.  There are many scrubs, grasses, and even trees near where we stayed.  On the walk out, we encountered many bones and animal remains in the pastures we passed through to get to the more desert-like region.  These were mainly goat remains left from a previous slaughter. 

We stepped onto the sandy dunes past the pastures and it immediately felt more desert-like.  Josh offered a bounty of ₮20 to the first man to defeat the highest dune in front of us. I being on to take on almost any challenge (even if it is for just over 1₵) took off sprinting. 

As I reached the top, I looked back victoriously as my less competitive compatriots walked up the dune.  The view was amazing!  I could see off into the distance for what seemed like miles.  When everyone made it to the top, there were photo ops galore.  Then the time came that we needed to head back to camp to have dinner.

Since heading into the desert had been made into a competition, of coursing leaving also had to become one.  On the way back Howard, Hayden, and I found a nice, big dune that was fairly clear of shrubbery and shrapnel and we emptied our pockets.  We laid down at the top and waited for the ward from Adam with his video camera.  When he gave the word, we began to roll.  Faster and faster we went as we gained velocity down the sandy dune.  When we reached the bottom and regained our composure, I realized that I had curved about 20’ to the left while Hayden and Howard made a fairly straight run.  Regardless, Adam and others reported that I had made it down the fastest.  Sweet, sweet victory once again.

We trekked back through the pastures of bone to our dinner ger, the largest ger I have ever seen.  We were served a fairly fancy dinner, an unexpected situation in the wilds of the Gobi.  After we ate and had class, the wild called to us once again.  Another group of us decided to go see the stars in the desert before we went to bed.  It was a dark and storm free night.  We chatted for a while and after seeing a few shooting stars and satellites, we headed back to retire to our gers but not before I was able to plan a sunrise hike to the highest nearby hill with Aaron.

5:15 My alarm beeps in my ear.  The fire has gone out and the warm woolen blankets are my last safe haven of warmth in the harsh morning cool of the ger.  I am supposed to meet Aaron in 15 minutes.  We have made a pact that if either of us is not there by 5:45 the other will head out alone. 

5:20 The soothing comforts of my covers still hold me captive.  Is this really worth it? How much will we be doing later that will require me to be well rested? How cold is it outside compared to the warmth of my covers?  I decide I still have plenty of time before I need to be up so I roll over again.

5:25 I am still held hostage by my bed.  I convince myself that there will not be another chance to see a sunrise over the Gobi.  I pry myself out from under my covers, but only after dragging my frigid clothing under my covers to put them on and warm up before I enter the cold, harsh world that is our ger.  I exit the ger and venture into the colder, harsher world that is the outside of our ger and head over to the designated meeting area.  When Aaron is not there, I head to his lodging to see if I can rouse him.  Just as I walk up, he exits ready to go. 

The regret from leaving the my bed quickly dissipates as I warm up from the walk to the hill.  The hike is filled with good company and good conversation.  We traverse up the undefined “paths” that lead up to the peak of the hill.  We see various unique bugs and flowers on the way up.  Finally we reach the top. 

We arrive just as the sun is rising in the east over a glorious array of clouds in the otherwise clear, vast sky.  Rays of orange, goldenrod, and pink spread themselves into the blue-grey predawn expanse, illuminating the clouds causing them to burn radiantly in the previously dull sky.  The light shines brightly on the ovoo at the top of the hill, the warm colors of the sun contrasting the blue prayer flags tied to the wood and stone.

We take plenty of pictures of the sunrise and each other.  As we are reveling in the majestic early morning show, three eagles swoop in over the horizon.  They banter playfully with each other and other birds as we look on awestruck.  We take some more pictures of the eagles and a horse skull we find nearby and then begin our decent.

As we take the bus back down the bumpy dirt road on the way back home, someone notices a local herdsman with his herd of camel.  We have been told that we would be given the opportunity to ride camels so we have the bus pull over here.  A group of Swedish Buddhists who was also at our camp is finishing up their ride leaving the camels unoccupied and ready for our group.  Colin arranges a price with the owner, though too late for some as Aaron has already handed a wad of cash more than three times the decided price to the herdsman and gotten on a camel.  We all take turns riding around in a small area around the bus while the others take pictures and watch those on the camels.  After the pictures have been taken, we all pile back onto the bus and head out to our next destination.

A few hours later, we arrive at Karakorum, Chinggis Khan’s old capital.  We looked at the booths outside of the city where I was able to hold an eagle very similar to the ones we saw earlier.  We went into the city and explored for a while. We went back out and I began honing by haggling skills.  When everyone had finished, we took the under-estimated ride back to the city, finishing the night with grilled cheese sandwiches made by the GA’s.  The dogs were extremely excited when we returned and barked and howled at us all night long