Asia

Meeting a Marmot

Tonight we went over to our neighbors’ home for dinner and feasted on delicious Mexican food, French wine, Guinness Ale, Belizean and Korean dessert.  The wife is from Belize, and she did a fabulous job conjuring savory tastes from Latin America (we don’t often eat delicious Latin American food in this part of the world).  The husband is an accomplished drummer, and he showcased his talent with a few licks on the drums.  My son enjoyed the entertainment so much that he gave it a try and drummed a few chords of his own–before we dragged him off the drum set.  I wasn’t about to find out how much it would cost to replace drum equipment!  Our neighbors’ home features an eclectic collection of treasures gathered from around the world, the product of years of living overseas.   We previously had our neighbors over for dinner in July, after they arrived from Beijing.  At that time, we decided to get together again, but we hadn’t had the chance to meet until tonight.  I’m glad we had the opportunity to see them again before the holidays.  I cannot believe how fast time has flown by since we arrived!  It seems as if summer was only yesterday, and now Christmas is almost here. 
 
Our neighbors invited a few other guests over tonight.  I was surprised to discover that one guest is none other than the blogger who writes "The Marmot’s Hole," arguably the most popular blog in the Korea blogosphere.  (The Korea Life Blog was number one until the blogger moved to Beijing, China and started a new blog, the China Life Blog.)  We met "Marmot" (not his real name) along with his wife, who is from Mongolia, and a very nice Korean couple who own and operate Seoul Selection, a shop focusing on expatriates living in Korea.  They are all very nice people.  I haven’t visited Seoul Selection yet, but I may have to stop by soon.  I wandered over to Marmot’s blog tonight and read some entries.  If you want to get a feel for the pulse of what’s really happening in Korea, check it out.  It provides far more information about Korean culture than what you will find here at World Adventurers.  My blog tends to focus on a few issues about life in Korea and analyzes them to death (or so my wife thinks!).  The Marmot’s blog touches all areas of the Korean universe.
 
I was especially interested in hearing more about Marmot’s life and how he became so famous in the blogosphere.  He laughed when I told him that I had heard of his blog and that he was quite famous among Korea blogophiles.  (No, he did not know about my blog but said that he would stop by sometime.)   Now that Muninn has returned to Boston for school and Shawn Matthews (Korea Life Blog) is in Beijing, Marmot really is king of the proverbial ant hill, whether he wants to be or not.  He said that popularity of "The Marmot’s Hole" grew primarily by word of mouth and through links from other popular blogs.  While I wouldn’t mind 3,000-4,000 blog hits per day, I would much rather that World Adventurers remain a hidden gem readers stumble upon by accident.  I’m always happy to see visitors such as Athena stop by and post nice comments about this blog.  Still, I enjoyed meeting a fellow blogger and learning more about him and his wife and about their life in Korea.  I admire the fact that he’s stayed here so long and is so plugged into this fascinating society.  It takes years of cultivating relationships–and a good grasp of the Korean language–to really get to know Korea.  We won’t be here long enough to become intimately acquainted with the Land of the Morning Calm.  I’ll probably find my own niche when World Adventurers moves to China in the future and I become reacquainted with a culture I know far better than Korean culture.

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.