My Day Trip to Daegu (Part 1)

February 26th: The Day I was Supposed to Go to Daegu

February 27th: The Day I Went to Daegu and Returned

Why the delay? I had to work on the 26th to get ready for the new term. Why go to Daegu? I have my reasons, but that’s for My Trip to Daegu (Part 2).

But as they say, the journey is more than the destination’s weight in gold. Or something like that. Okay, so not true in this case, but I’ll get to the destination in a minute. For now: Journey.

I intended to leave for Daegu around noon-ish. Unfortunately it was pouring rain (sorry, Marty, no walks today), which delayed the buses. And delayed me in getting ready because I had to dig out my umbrella. And then the bus pulled up to the bus stop weirdly so I didn’t get on it in time before it drove away. So I didn’t get to Suwon Station until 1:00pm. And the ticket I got was for a train leaving at 1:39pm, and I would be standing for around 40 minutes.

Oh well. What could I do? I tell you what I could do! I could take that extra time, eat some Burger King, sit on the train platform in the cold and watch the trains go by and jam out to some K-Pop on my freshly charged iPod.

On the train, there were these two Korean girls who kept peaking over their seats and laughing when I smiled at them. They were pretty young, probably around 6 and 4 years old. It was a cute game but I was hoping they wouldn’t continue it when I got to sit down since I was sitting across from them (and they didn’t). But at one point I heard the older one repeat to the younger one America (미 국 mi-gook) over and over. Then the younger one tried to repeat it but what she said sounded more like mi-gaw. So I pointed my finger and laughed at her since my Korean was better than hers! Okay; no, I did not.

After a 3-ish hour train ride, I arrived in Daegu. The Gotham city of Korea (I had read that somewhere, but now can’t find the website, but Daegue supposedly has many nicknames so why not Gotham?). I did not see Batman but it was only 4:30 so I guess he wasn’t out being The Night yet. And it was still raining. While on the subway, I noticed something that normally doesn’t really catch my attention: fashion. Many people have pointed out that everyone in Seoul dresses stylishly and black shoes are far an above the norm, which makes sense because it’s the capital and there are many business people and fasionistas that live and work there. In Daegu, the dress was a lot more casual and NO ONE was wearing black shoes. Which makes NO SENSE. Black shoes are just logical. You can’t see when they’re dirty. I also noticed that the girls in Daegu are not stick thin. That’s not to say all girls in Seoul are, but I always noticed some well dress 20-30 year old who has stick-thin limbs. Did not notice that in Daegu but I wasn’t on the subway for that long.

Also, the Daegu subway. Only two lines – green and red. All the fairs (it seemed) were a flat 1,100 won. And in addition of using a card system like Seoul (and I believe Daejeon), they use a token system for single fair riders. I still do not know how I feel about this, especially because unlike the Seoul subway, the turnstil machine eats your single fair token and does not give you the option to return it for a small refund or keep it for a nifty souvenir (as I wanted to do). Also, it seemed pretty easy for the token to get lost or fall and at one point I thought it did fall out of my pocket when really it just got lodged in my wallet. I would have taken a picture of the token but I realized only once I got to Daegu that, even though I had charged my iPod battery, I did not charge my camera battery;___;…

This part of my post is for my Dad: While in Daegu, I visited one of their four HomePluses.

And coming up tomorrow: My Day Trip to Daegu (Part 2).

A Laundry List of Blog Posts

I’m dragging my feet about writing this blog post because it signals the beginning of the end of this blog. I’m officially back in the United States, my contract and extension having ended on May 27th. I have a few more posts that I want to write up, though, before I officially end this blog. Well, end it for the most part. I guess I could keep writing about learning Korean and I’m sure to have more Korean adventures at some point (such as a visit to the local Oriental Market for some kimchi!) but for the most part, this blog will have entered its twilight.

So I made a deal with myself to make sure that I finish these entries in a timely manner. That is to say, before I forget exactly what happened on each day. I’m going to make a list of what I wanted to post about but never got around to it and then for the next week, or however long it takes, I’ll write a post per day, minimum. And this counts as the one for today.

1. My Day trip to Daegu (Part 1) – already written, just not posted
2. My Day Trip to Daegu (Part 2)
3. How Marty was Found
4. The Yeoido Flower Festival
5. My Second Lotus Lantern Festival
6. Cirque du Soliel’s Varekai
7. Packing
8. My Last Few Days
9. The European Korean Kid
10. My flight home
11. A Look Back on My Adventures in Korea