Another week in Korea has come and gone.



Which reminds me: There are fewer egregious notebook entries this week than last. Perhaps all our hard work in the classroom is paying off. Or maybe Mrs. Nam reads SoKoNotes. Let's hope not. Here are a couple stand-outs. See if you can figure out what the student was trying to say.

"I don't relief sometimes."

"They are so land at me."

Why is it that wherever I go in this city somebody offers me a shot of soju or a beer? It never fails. I cannot walk past a group of old men picnicking without a friendly offering of booze shouted in my direction. What's with this? It's like people take one look at me and say to themselves, "Yeup, that guy needs a drink."

Unless I have a lot of time to sober up or I am riding the subway home, I always decline. Driving in Busan is dangerous enough as it is. Driving drunk on a motorcycle in Busan is patently suicidal behavior in the same league as wrestling crocodiles or Russian roulette.

I put a lot of Korean asphalt under my new black Kumho tires this weekend. On Saturday afternoon I met Kristen at her apartment on the crest of Half-Moon Hill and we saddled up for a jaunt into the Korean countryside with little more than a cheesy tourist map, a bottle of water and my camera. The road snaked its way along the high shoulder of Half-Moon Hill, the gaps in the trees offering beautiful views of the wind-whipped ocean far below, and eventually deposited us onto a multi-lane county road leading towards Ulsan.

Kristen had driven this road once before with her friend and co-worker Winnie within the safe steel pillars and doors of a car. Riding on the back of a motorcycle was an entirely different way to experience the Korean countryside.

"I enjoy being a passenger," said Kristen later. "Your hair is blowing, it's much more liberating."

When she was eleven, Kristen and her father traveled from their stomping grounds in Northern Wisconsin up through Canada to Maine and then all the way home through the central midwestern states - entirely by motorcycle. It rained almost the whole trip.

"We went through two rainsuits each," she said. During the long hours of driving, Kristen's father worried about Kristen possibly falling asleep. On a similar journey a few years earlier with her sister, Kristen's father had even gone so far as to tie his daughter's hands together around his waist to prevent her from slumbering her way off of the moving vehicle.

There would be no need for any jerry-rigged safety measures on our trip down the Korean coast. It was daylight, the sun was shining and we both had helmets. Earlier I had downed two cups of Aurora coffee (imported from Atlanta courtesy of my wonderful father) and I was as wired and alert as a desert fox as I navigated the schizoid Korean traffic streaking down the highway.

At an intersection sporting a giant bowling pin Kristen and I made a right-hand turn for the coast. The poorly paved road lead us to a tiny fishing village. We parked the motorcycle and walked down to the sea. Dozens of fishermen dotted the seawall, casting their rods, drinking soju and talking. Old ajummas dried meter-long strands of seaweed called "mi-ya" on chicken-wire racks in the sunshine. The wavy, black sea vegetable tinted the cool spring air with its brackish odor.



We walked along the road until coming across two candy-striped tents by a long-abandoned military post. Through the semi-transparent plastic windows could be seen patrons drinking soju and cider, eating fresh raw seafood chopped up on a wooden block outside. I came across an ajumma carefully skining delicate sea animals alive and asked her about the creature dying in her hands. "Hangul Mal-o moy ye yo," I blurted out.

The woman, who appeared to be in her mid-forties, smiled wryly and thrust the wet, orange piece of flesh forward. Eat this, she said. Oh crap, I just wanted to know what it is, I thought in alarm. Did I say something wrong? Kristen and I faltered a second, glancing at one another as if wondering what the other person might do. Kristen took the lead. She accepted the proffered mystery meat in her hand, and I followed suit. All I was thinking as I shoved the gelatonous beast into my mouth was, "I have never, ever eaten anything this color before."

It tasted incredibly salty and the texture was akin to stiffened egg whites. I chewed, muling over disquiting thought that this mouthful of wierdness had just recently been, and might actually still be alive. I fought the urge to spit it up. Kristen had already swallowed hers, and the look in her eyes as she spied me still chewing said, "you're actually chewing that thing?"

Kristen and I decided to go for the gusto. We walked into the panjang macha and ordered some raw seafood. The young woman who ran the joint spoke a little English, and she took us for a tour of the buckets filled with imprisoned sealife where we ordered our lunch. Twenty minutes later a plate of raw So-rah (clams, I think) and Go-dong (conch) arrived on our table with a paltry side of mi-ya and fresh carrots. The shellfish was extremely tough and chewy. Kristen remarked that it felt like we were eating someone's ear.

On the way back to the bike, we stopped to pee. Kristen found some interesting Konglish and she took a photo. Just so everyone is on the same page, it's a crab breaking a cigarette while taking a crap.



After a brief stop to take a few more photographs, we left for home.



On Sunday I slept late and worked on my website. When my eyes stared to glaze over from staring at my computer screen, I decided it was time to get out of the house. A shower and a bite to eat and I was out the door, headed for Oryukdo.

Oryukdo, which translates "the five-six islands," is the "symbol of Busan," according to offical tourism literature. Busan is very proud of its large, bustling deep-water port, and every ship that enters the port passes by the line of rocky crags jutting out of the water. An operational lighthouse, originally built in 1937, perches on the furthest island. The islands got their name from the way the rising tide divides one island in two. It is a popular fishing destination and the land adjacent to Oryukdo is the location for a major housing complex called SK View.

I puttered by the massive SK View construction site on my motorcycle, marveling at its size and audacity. Past the complex, the road peaked at an overlook and then dropped steeply down to the fishing village by Oryukdo. I think the village was originally a temporary home for workers on an earlier construction project or the soldiers who once manned the coastal military posts, because almost every building was abandoned, the windows long-since stripped of their glass, the dusty rooms filled with the broken, discarded artifacts of absent human life.



Through a few windows could be seen Oryukdo itself. That must have been nice for whoever lived there.



Oryukdo itself was impressive. The islands are so perfectly aligned that it took me a few minutes to realize that I wasn't looking at two of the islands, I was looking at three.



The lighthouse jutted up from the last island, almost perfectly framed by the first and third islands.



People picnicked in the abandoned machine-gun nests, drinking soju and chatting me up.



I enjoy trying out my language skills, though the intoxication levels of my conversation partners tends to be a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because their speech slows down. It's a curse because I think they're talking pure nonsense. All I can really discern is that they want me to sit down and get soused with them.

Closer to the sea was a staircase leading down to a raw-fish restaurant.



I walked down and photographed the people basking in the sunshine, the whole scene framed by the white-tipped ocean on one side and the abandoned, faded-pastel concrete buildings on the other.





As they dined ships of all sizes and designs slowly made their way into and out of Busan harbor. I got to watch the hydrofoil ferry race into the harbor, a massive plume of water rooster-tailing out behind it. What had been an tiny blip on the horizon when I arrived hours earlier became a huge containership marked with the word EVERGREEN and stacked high with earthtoned shipping containers. A host of tugboats intercepted it as it passed Oryukdo and entered the port.

The trees are in blossom, and the weather is warming up. With the warmer weather the motorcycle is really starting to show its worth. Now that I am not restricted to the subway and bus systems, all that I have to worry about is time. In the coming months, look for more trips into the Korean "outback" right here on SoKoNotes. So long! --Notes