Sue boo way stat tea on?

"Sue boo way stat tea on?" Imagine you’re spending a day in your nearest, major, North American, metropolitan city and a conspicuous foreigner came up to you and utter those words. You’d be dumbfounded to say the least. Yet, this is basically how I spent much of my weekend, as I explored Seoul with BK, a terrific friend who was in the neighbourhood. The Korean pronunciation for a subway station, or "sue boo way stat tea on" for the phonetically impaired, is "jihacheol yeok," a word which by nature is designed to be butchered by foreigners. The two of us spent much of our Saturday and Sunday walking up to complete strangers and flubbing the Korean language by grunting out the words "jihacheol yeok" and talking monosyllabically like cavemen (or cavepeople for those of you who are for gender equality. Although thinking about it, I bet if one wanted to get historically accurate it would be more correct to say cavewomen. Please, come join me on my tangent. The males who lived during the "caveman" era spent most of their time out of the cave hunting and scavenging, and, in fact, it was probably the women who spent a significant amount of time in caves. So perhaps cavewomen should be the more correct term, seeing has how they are the ones who spent the majority of the time in caves. Don’t worry, I’ll contact the fine lexicographers at Webster’s and Oxford and run it by them).


Seoul at dusk. She's a big one!

BK, a fellow Grand Canyon traveller, is also teaching here in Korea for a year and decided he would take the four hour bus ride to experience the lunacy that is Seoul. (I feel like I have more friends visiting me on the other side of planet then I did back home). I’ve been married to my Lonley Planet, Seoul edition since purchasing it last weekend, and I hoped that I could delude BK and make him believe that I was a competent tour guide who knew the intricacies of my home city.

Me cuddling with my Lonely Planet Seoul.... Slip it the tongue!

On Saturday night we scaled, after a little bushwhacking, the 262 m high Namsan hillock, which is home to Seoul Tower and provides an amazing, panoramic view of the Seoul skyline. On Sunday we went to Bongeunsa, "a thousand-year old Buddhist temple at the heart of Seoul" as the ESL pamphlet so adequately put it. It really was quite profound to walk through the gates of this temple and all but escape the busyness of a city that is comprised of 10.7 million people. BK and I spoke very little, walked slowly, and spent much of our morning just sitting on prayer mats with our eyes closed and our minds dancing. In a world where humans try and do everything quicker: speed walk, speed date, eat fast food, etc. it’s such a contrast and refreshing change to slow down and almost come to a complete stop.
A buddhist temple, plop in the middle of Seoul.



BK and I on a bicycle built for two in Olympic Park. Quite the romantic date... Slip him the tongue?

Afterwards we headed to Olympic Park, the home of the 1988 Olympic games. Naturally, as Canadians we paid our homage to the place where Ben Johnson made history so many years ago. For those of you don’t remember, Ben Johnson’s 100 metre, 9.79 second sprint was, as the kids say these days, dope. The Peace Gate at Olympic Park.

BK and I also learned a valuable lesson this weekend. Of the 5 or 6 strangers we asked for directions, how to get to the nearest "sue boo way stat tea on", or to take our photo, all of them spoke very fluid English. We would try our best to speak Korean – many of them complimented BK on his pronunciation – yet every time the natives responded to our questions in English. This is an important thing to have realized because I, quite ignorantly, assumed that people in this country can’t understand me when I am having a conversation with other English speaking people. Many times in the subway or on the street I’ve found myself using the occasional curse word inappropriately and not at curse word volume because I assume that nobody else can understand. Yet, as I learned this probably isn’t case. Also, it’s internationally known that when learning a new language the swear words are one of the first things you're told. So thanks solely to my poor behaviour there are a few Koreans out there thinking, "rude American."

Tenderly,

Ian "slip it the tongue" Horsewood