On the Border at the DMZ

The last several weeks have been insanely busy and have flown by. December is already well on its way, not sure how that even happened.

Towards the end of November, I was able to make a trip to the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea. Good thing we went when we did, because a few days later, the tension shot up between NK and SK and things are still not exactly stable.

I probably should have posted about the DMZ closer to when it happened because I can't remember many of the facts anymore. It was a very interesting trip, worth one trek, but not a second. After teaching on Friday night, we took the KTX fast train to Seoul and finally settled into a seedy love motel around 2:30am - wake up call 7:00am. After Dunkin' Donuts coffee and a bagel, we headed for our tour bus with a bunch of other foreigners.

The DMZ goes 2km into North Korea and 2km into South Korea and is supposedly the most heavily militarized border in the world. Our first stop was Imjingak and the Bridge of Freedom at the edge of the DMZ, 2km from the actual North Korean border. Close to 13,000 prisoners crossed the bridge to "freedom" in 1953. They also had part of an old train with more than 1,000 bullets that was derailed in the war. There were some good touristy photo opps there and a small amusement park that I thought was abandoned until I saw the "Super Viking" swinging across the sky.

Next, we went to the Third Tunnel - North Korea had dug many tunnels with the plan of secretly attacking Seoul at some point. We weren't allowed to take photos in the tunnel area, but we did have some great hard-hats that we were required to wear. We looked unfathomably awesome. Some parts of the tunnel got pretty low, and the foreigners tend to be taller than 5 feet tall. I could hardly contain my laughter when every 3 seconds, on beat like a metronome, hard-hats would clink on the tunnel ceiling followed by a slight groan. I enjoyed it.

This full day tour was a long one! Next, we went to an observation point of North Korea that we weren't allowed to take photos at once you stepped foot over this line. It made no sense whatsoever, but I did, however, break the rules.  I accidentally took a picture on the wrong side of the line of someone getting busted for taking a picture on the wrong side of the line. We also stopped at Dorasan station, which is the last train stop in South Korea. They built it hoping that it would open up some railways into North Korea, but that didn't work out.

Finally, we made it to the actual border of North and South Korea - Panmunjom, or sometimes known as JSA (Joint Security Area). At that point, the tour was led by the US Army. We were able to cross the actual border within a building that was being guarded by ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers. They just stood there with Ray-Ban-like aviator sunglasses on and did not move an inch, much like the guards outside Buckingham Palace.

It was a good trip, a long day and glad I did it once, but wouldn't sign up for it again. To keep things in the theme of "borders," we went to On The Border for dinner in Sincheon, near Hongdae - a good place to go out for a night in Seoul. Some of my other friends from Daegu had been in the area for The Flaming Lips show and we met up later on. The band turned up at the bar we were at, and I had a few words and a hand shake with the lead singer, Wayne Coyne. The rest of the night turned out to be one to remember forever. Thank you, Seoul. See you soon.

And for your ears: Lemon Jelly - "Spacewalk"


LEMON JELLY Spacewalk from Mario Cavalli on Vimeo.

DUFL in Daejon

Daegu is lucky enough to have some really cool people that started DUFL - Daegu Ultimate Frisbee League. When I joined this superior league, I had no idea what I was in for. A real, competitive, 150-person league, official jerseys, recorded stats... DUFL is the real deal. It's been a very fun season, and I'm sad to see it come to an end.

This past weekend, we had our final games of the regular season in Daejon. Although DUFL has Daegu in the name, there are 2 teams from other cities - 1 team from Busan and 1 team from Daejon, the other 5 are from Daegu. The games in Busan were actually played on the beach and were a blast! Playing on the sand was so liberating, and everyone was making dives and ambitious attempts.

When we arrived in Daejon, the field was not as glamorous as we had anticipated. Drew, sprawled out on a bench in his Snuggie showing his disappointment. Shortly after the games began, a group of older Korean men posted up a few feet from one of our end zones and started a warm-up routine. Some of the DUFL members joined in looking awesomely ridiculous. The weekend turned out to be full of competitive games and a fun night out with a group that doesn't typically party together.

There also happened to be a free "rock festival" happening on Saturday night, but by the time I got there, there was no sign of live music. It was only around midnight, and apparently the fest had been shut down for hours - some responsible party had not gotten noise permits, and everything had been shut down around 11:00. Still, it became a night of adventures.

After our game against Daejon (the team tied for first place with Busan), they instigated an interesting game. I have no idea what they call this game, but I refer to it as Sword Game. I didn't have a chance to grab my camera earlier, which is sad because this was way funnier when there were about 20 people playing. Still a taste, nonetheless!

Lastly, music choice of the week!

Small Black - Photojournalist

Global Gathering

Last weekend, there was a worldwide electronic music festival in Seoul called Global Gathering. My understanding is that this show travels all over the world but hosts different bands and DJs that are from that particular country. Some bands travel to more than one location, like Armin Van Buuren and, I believe, Justice and Fatboy Slim as well.


It was a 1 hour 40 minute ride on the KTX fast train, something like 8 stops on the Seoul subway maze and a 20 minute ride on a lovely Global Gathering-sponsored shuttle bus.

We got there just in time to see The Koxx perform - an alright Korean band my friends came across at a rock fest a few weeks back. Dr. Martens and Jagermeister were sponsors of the event along with Singha Thai beer and a few other less memorable ones.

It was a very long day as we left Daegu at 8am, arrived at the festival at 2pm after some lunching and didn't leave the venue until 3am. Good thing one of our friends had arranged for her place to stay already because we just crashed there at 4am. The other option was to push it through the night and stay up until 5:30am when the first KTX left for Daegu - we couldn't make it.

Justice and Fatboy Slim put on very entertaining and dance-worthy shows, and some of the other bands weren't too bad - Idiotape, Telepathy and of course, the Koxx. It was a really fun time, and it's nice to keep doing different things on the weekends. I'm not sure how many people were at this festival, but it could not even begin to compare to Coachella - I can hardly say the two in the same sentence. It's great for Korea - I find myself saying that quite often. Things are measured on a different level of greatness at home as they are here in Korea. You have to cut "everything" some slack, and I do mean everything........ sometimes you just gotta say, "It's good... for Korea."

I included some video clips from Justice, but for some reason the sound stops halfway through, check them out on my YouTube channel. The Fatboy Slim video wouldn't load, but you can check it out here. The sound is a little fuzzy - I guess that dance music is too loud for my little camera.

A Million Pics in Sokcho

For Chuseok - Korean Thanksgiving - we got three days off work in the middle of the week. We journeyed up to northern South Korea to Sokcho for strenuous hiking at Seoraksan Mountain - the third highest mountain in South Korea. It was beautiful in "Fresh Sokcho." It's a small town, but there were a lot of people around for the holiday and tons of foreigners visiting as well. 

We spent one day just hiking the giant mountain, or rock rather. There was one 14 ton rock that is famous for people trying to push it off the ledge. It still cannot be done. We tried and tried to make history and get on CNN but to no avail. We rewarded ourselves for our hard work and went into town for dak galbi (chicken korean bbq) and some drinks. There, we met a group of hilarious Koreans who were back home in Sokcho for the holiday.

The next day, we did the touristy things, checked out the beach, Sokcho Tower, etc. Dozens of adorable Korean children were driving around in plastic motor cars in the courtyard of Sokcho Tower. Some mistakenly were playing bumper cars with each other. One precious girl was just as fascinated with me as I was with her - she walked right up to my face.

When it was raining, we went to a Jimjilbang, which is a place with all kinds of saunas. There are some unisex areas with various temperature saunas to include 'ice' saunas. There are TVs in some of the sauna rooms, there are massage chairs, PC rentals, a cafe, draft beer area and a section separated by sex with different hot pools and showers for a no clothing, no swimsuit area. Beth managed to snap a few photos in the clothed sections.

It was an awesome trip, great scenery, excellent workout and couldn't have been a better break from Daegu.