Graham on the road: A little more about Korea

I know, I know - it's been a while since my last blog. I could blame work, studying (I'm doing an online course) and climbing, but it's more about just putting off writing.

Anyway, I'm on a roll now, so here it is ...

Seoul is full of coffee shops and so, to stand out from the crowd, some shops have a gimmick. There are dog cafes ...

cat cafes, and then there are the more creative …

This one has two sheep. They were in their pen while I was there but they sometimes wander between the tables. You can buy food to feed the sheep, allowing you to get your caffeine fix and tapeworm at the same time.

Staying on the theme of cafes and restaurants, I saw this in the centre of Seoul. I’m not sure they’ve got the right idea about marketing.

I ordered a kimchi jigeh (stew) the other day. I've now learned how to say 'not spicy' and so I used it on this occasion. However, kimchi jigeh is spicy so my request caused the ladies in the cafe to launch into a heated discussion that must have gone something like:

A. He just ordered kimchi jigeh, not spicy.

B. But kimchi jigeh is always spicy?!

A. I know, I know. What should we do?

B. Let's just take a few chillies out and see if he eats it.

A. Worth a try

And eat it I did. It was about right.

I've since learned how to say 'a bit spicy', which would make more sense in these situations.

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Talking about Korean, here's your next quick lesson:

Of all the rotten luck, there are two ways to count in Korean. This is a quirk of history dating back to the days when China had an influence here. So, there's the native Korean number system and the Chinese (Sino) -Korean system. I found the Sino-Korean numbers quite easy to learn but had all sorts of difficulties remembering the native Korean numbers.

일 ‘eel’ one

이 ‘ee’ two

삼 ‘sam’ three

사 ‘sah’ four

오 ‘oh’ five

육 ‘yook’ six

칠 ‘chill’ seven

팔 ‘pahl’ eight

구 ‘koo' nine

십 ‘ship’ ten

하나 ‘hana’ one (I’m sure you can guess the rest)

둘 ‘tool’

셋 ‘set’

넷 ‘net’

다섯 ‘tahsot’

여섯 ‘yosot’

일곱 ‘illgop’

에덟 ‘yodol’

아홉 ‘ah-hop’
열 ‘yool’

As I mentioned in a previous blog, the characters are stacked into blocks, and each symbol has a sound. So, 이 is 'ee' and ㄹ is 'l', making 일 sound like 'eel'.

They each have specific uses so, as well as having to learn two sets of numbers, you also have to learn the correct occasions on which to use each.

So, when telling the time, you use the Sino-Korean numbers for the hours and the native Korean numbers for the minutes.

여섯시 6 o’clock

여섯시 십분 ten minutes past six

When saying how many items you want to buy, you use the native Korean system:

커피 한잔 one cup of coffee

Like many words, ‘coffee’ is what’s known as Konglish - English words Koreanised. So, 커피 sounds like ‘copy’ (as there’s no ‘f’ sound in Korean).

... but you use the Sino-Korean system for money

오천 원 ‘oh chon won’ five thousand won (about £3.40)

They say it gets easier.

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As ever, I’ve seen a few quirky things around town that take a bit of explaining.

On a walk, I came across these steps …

... and at the teaching centre in Gangnam, I noticed that the building didn’t have a 4th floor.

This one turned out to be easily explained - the word for the number 4 in Korean is 사 (sah). This is also the word for ‘death’ and so the number is avoided; very much like the number 13 in other cultures. Don't point out to anybody that the 5th floor is really the 4th ...

There was a lot of confusion in a class I taught a while back. I had ticked their good work only to be asked if everything they had done was wrong. I was very surprised to discover that ticks are used to indicate incorrect work here. Circles are used to indicate correct work. Apparently, several other countries consider a tick to mean ‘wrong’ too. I’m baffled.

Here's an efficient uses of space that needs no explaining ...

and another that might - you put your bike on the rails, pay your money, and it's sucked inside ...

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A short trip to Vietnam

I had 2 weeks off in May so I went on a trip back to my last home - Hanoi. I also had a weekend in Thanh Hoa, about 3 hours south of Hanoi.

When I arrived, I stayed with friends some distance from the centre. One thing I'd forgotten is the public speaker system - they start making public announcements or playing music any time from 6am. It's a bit like the Muslim call to prayer but this is more like a call to get up and go to work

Another thing was the concept of lane discipline when driving; or even staying on the correct side of the road. The idea doesn't seem to exist here.

Then there's the food. This is Bún bò Nam Bộ, and very nice it is too.

And here's cà phê sữa đá, iced coffee with yoghurt. Possibly the nicest coffee in the world

In Thanh Hoa, I stayed in the Trades Union hotel - a hotel specifically for the members. Minh's mum is a member. It's just across the road from the beach.

On the Saturday night someone decided to sing karaoke - it happens a lot here. That would be fine but he turned up the volume so it could be heard a kilometre away. Not good for me as my room was 100m away. In the morning at 8am he (or someone) started again. The phrase 'don't give up the day job' definitely sprang to mind.

Minh & Nhung in our breakfast cafe

I spent the week catching up with a whole load of friends and look forward to seeing them all again soon.

I also found time to pop in on my favourite Vietnamese charity - REACH. I was shown around their new centre and lots of photos were taken (I mean lots!). They're doing a wonderful job helping disadvantaged young people in Vietnam.

When I got back to Seoul, I jumped straight on a train and headed south to the hills. Over the next few days I walked part of Jirisan and Hallasan (two of the highest peaks in South Korea). The views are magnificent.

You see a few interesting warning signs on the paths. The first one made me wonder whether the bears are reasonably tame ...

but the next one changed my mind...

However, they're so rare the chances of encountering one on the path are pretty slim.

There was one more ...

Needless to say, I looked where I was putting my feet.

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One of my students gave me this the other day. It's a bag of wasabi balls. They might look like peas but need a health warning - they're hot and not my idea of tasty. I popped one in my mouth and got a bit of a shock. Can't see me going out of my way to get more.

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Food photos of the month ...

Here it is, the Korean 'sandwich', 김밥 (gimbap) Literally, 'seaweed rice'. It looks like Japanese sushi but isn't, mainly because it is covered in 김, Korean seaweed (which they will tell you is far tastier than the Japanese version) and also, the filling isn't raw fish. They come in all varieties - this one is tuna and salad but you can have ham, BBQ pork etc etc.