Finding Icheon; Losing my Camera

So this was the weekend to visit Icheon, which I had narrowly averted missing the previous weekend as I traveled up to Incheon to pick of the OAF. OAF came over about mid-day on Saturday and watched me frump around and not get much done towards moving in the direction of the Bus Station. Finally, with some sub-nagging, she got me going, and we headed to the office to get my long-lens, to the bank to get some big bills, and to the barber’s because I was beginning to look like some kind of hideous savage. The barber ajumma was asleep on her couch and it took a couple of seconds to wake her up. Certainly something unlikely to happen in the US. She gave me a pretty nice haircut and then a post-haircut shampoo in cold water. Because it was over 30 degrees outside, the cold water served as a tonic for this troop.

Then it was back home to pack our stuff up, and a taxi-ride to the bus station. The bus was scheduled to leave at 2:20 and we made it with at least 10 minutes to spare. We both napped a bit on the way up to Icheon, and as we finally pulled into town I could see the Hotel Miranda, which is the “western” style hotel in the town. “Western” style typically means that you pay more than three times as much as you should. We got to the bus station and bought our return tickets for the next day, just in case there should be a stampede of people returning from the Ceramics Festival to Korean Home Town. Then, it was out the back door of the bus-station and on that street, as is normal, there were a fistful of hotels. We went to the HillPark and got an adequate room for 40 bucks.

There had been no maps or information at the bus station, but I suspected the Hotel Miranda would have some. We tried to grab a cab, but the cabbie gestured to the other side of the bus station and when we walked around it, lo and behold, the Hotel Miranda was three blocks away. We walked over, past 5 barbeque joints, including at least two whose specialty was bulgogi. The Hotel Miranda is also a water park, so on the left side of the Hotel entrance there were families of Korean sitting on the sidewalk eating lunch and drinking beer. We went into the hotel and, as I had hoped, there were tourist maps and pamphlets.

We grabbed one of each and then headed back for an early bulgogi meal. This was the first time that I had ever eaten bulgogi without the BKF and I felt like even more of a cheater when I ordered a lovely icy bottle of soju to wash the thing down. There was only one bad moment, when the OAF ate a piece of garlic and hollered, “oh, that was terrible onion!”

The garlic was such a terrible piece of onion that the OAF sat, stock still, for 5 minutes, sweating and trying to will herself to vomit. It was one of her oddest restaurant performances, and I was lucky enough to be present. In a few minutes she was back to OK, and since it was still early, suggested we head out to the farthest-away site on the tourist map. We grabbed a taxi and headed to Icheon Ceramics Village. This was half-closed, but still had plenty open. We wandered in and out of shops and bought a few gifts for folks in the back-home.

Then we walked back towards town until a taxi could find us. There was still daylight, and the OAF was keen to explore, so we decided to go to the lake. The lake was also the front of Seolbong Park, which contained the Ceramics Festival and a couple of museums. We hied hence to the Festival and wandered around figuring the layout, watching the “make your own pottery” site, and then back to the traditional Korean kiln that was on the right side of the entrance. It was in full flame and I took some pictures of the mouth of the thing. This required me to lay full out on my stomach, and when I got up and brushed off my shirt, a man walked up to me and waved me over to a table surrounded by other Koreans, a few in traditional kit. He offered me a cup of Makgeolli, and I’m never one to turn down a drink. I had read about this drink, it’s just a bit above beer in alcohol content, so it was good to taste it. We sat around and talked about the kiln, ceramics, and Icheon in general, until it was time to go back. It was a good thing the OAF had us drop by, as the next morning the kiln had been shut down to cool the ceramics inside. Since one of the reasons I had come to Icheon was specifically to get a shot of a functioning kiln, this would have been a bummer.

Not as big a bummer as losing my camera with the chip inside. Which was what I immediately proceeded to do!

We grabbed a cab to the Bus Station and got out to wander around. I wanted to take the OAF to see a building with lit sailing rigging. So we walked over to it, but there wasn’t a good spot to take a picture. Finally, all the way around it, there was a break in the trees and I opened the backpack to get the camera….

…. Which of course was not there. Logically, of course, since I had left it on the back seat of the cab. ☹ Wonderfully, I had no identification on the camera or (and I only figured out that I should do this right at that moment) file on the camera-card saying how to contact me.

I had this crazy thought the cabbie would swing past the place again, looking for me. So we headed back towards the Bus Station and, a little bit down the way, both realized that we hoped

a) The cabbie had got into the cab queue at the station (once in, you can’t get out until you pick up a ride) and

b) No buses had arrived.

We got there and searched all the cabs in the queue… about ¾ of the way through the line (which I idiotically did from the back of the line) the OAF said, “don’t look in that one, the cab was white.”). And this made things quicker as I ran up the queue and only looked in white cabs.

None of which had the camera.

But the time saved.. ah.. the time saved. ;-)

The cab stuck at the traffic light, turning left? It was our white cab and two Korean guys and one very confused cabbie were trying to figure out how the hell they would track down the stupid Waegukin who had left the camera in the cab. The guy in the front seat spotted us and started waving the camera out the window. We rushed up and grabbed it, exchanges some heartfelt Kahmsamneeda’s and parted.

You get 200 Koreans together and god knows what you’ll get – it could be a party and it could be an anti-free-trade riot. As a group Koreans will believe most anything: Say, fan death, or Mad-Cow in the streets. But any individual Korean (or group small enough to make a conscious moral decision)? You will have some of the most honest people in the entire world. This is the second trip I’ve tried to lose something quite valuable (passport and money two trips ago) and in each case it was returned to me. Try being that forgetful in the United States (or any of the countries BAX has put his camera down only to find it gone in a trice).

In celebration of the loss of the loss, we headed to the WA bar where I had two San Miguels, the OAF had a coke, and we shared a lovely plate of iced peaches and orange slices.

Which left us with one more day at the Ceramic soiree.