Korea

APEC is over

Do you hear that?  It’s the sound of silence.  It’s the sound of the end of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Busan, Korea.  I am finally finished.  Most of the delegates left yesterday, but I’m sticking around Busan today on call in case something happens, and then tomorrow I will return to Seoul.  I have to say that my time here was one of the best professional experiences I’ve ever had.  It culminated in watching the President of the United States, the First Lady, Secretary of State, and their support staff arrive in a large motorcade and board Air Force One.  I have never seen such a spectacular.  I feel very privileged to have had such an opportunity to be able to see it and to be involved with such a big event.  The day before, I watched Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin arrive in his presidential plane.  The contrast between the departure and arrival of the two presidents could not have been more different (the U.S. delegation made an impact on Busan of seismic proportions).  All day long I felt as if I were rubbing elbows with the gods as I mingled between delegations.  We tailed the Chilean delegation to Haeundae by car (police escorts make it a lot easier to negotiate traffic!), and we followed the Taiwanese (Chinese Taipei) back to the airport again.  Now that it’s over, I have some time to sit back and reflect on it all.  I didn’t get much sleep during the past week, and I hardly had time to blog, but I know you’ll understand, Dear Reader, that it’s was worth it.  Now that I’m heading home, my daily blogging will start again.  Signing out from Busan.

Those darn fireworks

Yesterday was a marathon of a day for me.  At work by 6:45 a.m. yesterday, finally getting back to the hotel at 1:30 a.m. this morning.  I was all over Busan yesterday between locations, helping dignitaries for the APEC Summit arrive and get on their way.  The day was a mixture of hurry up and wait.  Hurry to the next site, do the preliminary work, wait, wait some more, and then spring into action when the dignitary arrives and race to get the work done before the next one comes in.  Some have done what they need to do at APEC and have already started to leave.  The action so far has come in waves.  I was very busy for three days, culminating in yesterday’s marathon.  Today has been much quieter, which is why I have time to write my blog at 5 p.m.  Today and tomorrow will be quiet while the delegates attend the various APEC meetings, and then on Saturday everything reverses course and I shall help them depart the country.  Despite missing dinner yesterday and breakfast this morning and surviving on water, sponge cake and vanilla wafers, I have had a lot of fun over the past few days.  There is perhaps no other annual political-economic gathering as large and comprehensive as the APEC Summit.  Next year it will be in Hanoi, Vietnam, and I wish the Vietnamese luck in pulling off a miraculously smooth Summit as the Koreans have thus far.
 
I have just one rant to share from my time here.  I do not understand why the City of Busan decided to launch fireworks from the bridge of a major transportation arterial at 8:30 p.m. last night, right in the middle of the time when the most important digitaries and their entourages arrive for the Summit.  The City could have held the fireworks display much later, or it could have launched them from the mountain overlooking the harbor.  There is no reason they needed to put the city’s main east-west arterial linking the airport to the APEC site (BEXCO) out of commission during a critical period of time.  Everyone in the city descended on the area to watch the fireworks, snarling traffic.  I needed to get an extremely important package (I cannot underestimate its importance) to Haeundae to give to a delegation, and my vehicle became hopelessly entangled in the horrendous traffic jam.  Not only did I not see the fireworks, but I never made it to the site.  One of the most important packages in the Summit had to be taken by a colleague of mine who had time in a taxi to Haeundae.  I needed to return to the airport for yet another arrival.  My driver called the police to request a police escort, and at first they thought we were joking.  By the time it was over, we were extremely upset, my colleague was in a taxi, and city officials were apologizing profusely for not responding to the crisis in time.  I’m sure the fireworks were gorgeous, but the timing and location were appalling.  The package did arrive safely, and I made it back to the airport in record time–because there was no traffic!  Virtually everyone in Busan was gridlocked near Haeundae.

I Survived Eating Pufferfish

I was extremely busy last night and crashed when I returned to my hotel.  It’s physically draining to be running around all day, hurrying up, stopping, waiting, springing into action.  Tomorrow night will be a very busy day for me as the most important dignitaries arrive here in Busan for the APEC Summit.  To read all about the APEC Summit and the goings-on here in Busan, visit http://www.apec.org/ or http://www.apec2005.org/.  The latter site goes into much more depth about what’s happening now here in Busan than what I could describe in a single blog entry.  It is quite an exciting time to be here in Busan.  I’m amazed to be on the front lines watching the action and advance preparations unfold.  I’m not a spectator, mind you, but I am watching while I work hard doing my small bit to make sure the show goes on smoothly.  The big show, the APEC Economic Leaders’ meeting, is yet to come on November 17, 18, and 19.  I will be here all the way through the Summit and will watch the last major plane fly away a few days later.
Yesterday I tried “bokguk,” or pufferfish soup.  The pufferfish, also known as the blow fish, is a spiny creature that blows itself up into a balloonish shape when it is frightened by potential predators.  The defense mechanism is one way for it to appear larger than life, scaring away the predator.  The pufferfish is also poisonous, secreting a poisonous toxin intended to kill its predator.  Many Americans know that Japanese enjoy eating pufferfish, better known in Japanese as “fugu.”  Stories occasionally come out of Japan claiming that someone died from eating “fugu,” typically caused by the improper preparation of the “fugu” dish.  In Japan, chefs receive extensive training on preparing “fugu” properly, removing the poison glands so that the puffin fish meat remains untainted.  It is considered a delicacy in Japan.

I did not realize that Koreans also eat pufferfish, although this fact makes perfect sense since Busan is just a few hours by boat off the coast of southern Japan.  In Korea, pufferfish is not generally considered a delicacy, and here in Busan, numerous shops serve the fish in a soup for about 5,000 Korean won (about $5.00).  The soup includes bean sprouts and chives and can be served either spicy or mild (depending on whether you want to eat it with red pepper paste.  It is typically served with rice and a variety of panchan, or side dishes.   The pufferfish meat is cut into large chunks and served in the soup.  One typically eats every part of the fish except the head, organs, and spine.  The meat is delicious.  Served fresh, the taste and texture do not taste like fish at all.  To use an overused cliche, the meat tastes more like chicken.  (Actually, it tastes more like frog leg.)  Perhaps best of all, the pufferfish has so few bones that it is very easy to eat. 
I’ve wanted to try “fugu” ever since I first read about it when I was a teenager.  Perhaps I’m crazy wanting to eat something that kills some people (I think the victims are typically children or the elderly).  I have no desire to eat live octopus, which here in Korea the cephalopod is occasionally known to kill an unwary diner if the struggling animal lodges itself in the diner’s throat and suffocates the diner, as happened to an unfortunate Korean man in the past year.  I personally think it’s cruel to eat live animals and would rather that my food not move on my plate while eating it.  I have the same apprehension whenever my wife’s family eats “drunken shrimp,” a Chinese delicacy featuring live shrimp soaked in alcohol.  I just cannot bear to eat an inebriated shrimp starting up at me with those big black eyes, as if to say, “Hey dude, surf’s up!”
According to Wikipedia, all species of pufferfish off the coast of Korea are considered poisonous.  It mentions a hilarious episode of “The Simpsons” in which Homer Simpson eats pufferfish and is mistakenly told he has just 24 hours to live.  Like Homer Simpson, I too ate pufferfish and lived to tell about it.  Perhaps more daringly, I ate pufferfish at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant I’m sure is run by a Korean family as a small business.  I’m positive the cook did not attend professional pufferfish culinary training.  Well, I survived anyway.  Will I try it again sometime?  Oh, I suppose I will, depending on the occasion, now that I know how delicious it is.  Hopefully next time I will try it at an upscale restaurant, where I would feel more comfortable about how my meal has been prepared.