TAEGU 9/25-9/29

Haggling with the airport cab driver is not uncommon, and not unexpected. However, this time we haggled with the taxi equivalent of a "pimp," who directed us to a cab after we talked down the cost from the airport to the hotel from $20k won to $10k. The drive lasted no more than 10 minutes, but the driver insisted on $15k when we got to the hotel.

Its warm here, with high humidity, but its much cooler than early August. In fact, compared to the last trip, the weather is rather pleasant. Check in at the Grand hotel was very quick, we got rooms at the 11th floor, just under the top floor containing the karaoke bar. The hotel was built in '93, but signs of age are very apparent. It is rated as a four-star hotel, and the staff certainly shows four-star courtesy, but the moldy hallways and low ceilings do not convey that quality. My room is average sized for a Holiday Inn, and there is a high-priced mini bar. The only 110v outlet is in the bathroom, built into the hair dryer wall unit that has a vacuum cleaner-like hose attachment. Doesn't matter, I brought adapters for the power outlets here. Once inside the room, you need to insert the key card into a slot in the wall to activate electricity - an energy-saving feature no doubt, but I like the air running to keep circulation during the day. The phone does not have a data port, but the front desk says I should be able to connect to the laptop via the phone cable directly. No such luck. I'm not even sure if the pin configuration on the phone jack is the same as the US standard. Oh well, no Internet access, and no FlyerTalk… There are several Korean channels on TV, an sports station in Chinese, plus the Armed Forces Network for US servicemen.

First impression of Korea is construction. There are lots of construction of apartment highrise buildings, roads and express ways. Everywhere you look, you'll see either Samsung, LG, Hyundai, or Daewoo. About 99% of all cars, trucks, trailers, construction vehicles have Korean brands. People here are very friendly, and most can speak a word or two of English. I don't know why, but most people here say I look Korean, and some go out of their way to replace my English menu with a Korean one! Drivers are more aggressive on the roads, but they also exhibit certain courtesies like turning off their headlights at the stop light, or turning on emergency flashers momentarily when there is a sudden stop in traffic.

The work days for me begin with an 8am wake up call, a conference call back to the home office, and the bulk of the day at the customer's site, return to the sales office for some emails, and head to dinner at 9:30pm. We had breakfast the first few days at the hotel, which is nothing to write home about, just your typical continental breakfast with O.J., eggs, bacon and toast. Lunch is always at the customer's cafeteria, a place I've heard horror stories about, both in food and operation. It consists of typical Korean cooking with generous portions of kimchee. One thing worth noting is the stainless steel bowls, plates, chopsticks, and trays. The place is an assembly line in perfection! The only comparison I can make is with a military chow-line.

Dinners have been more interesting. There is a TGI Fridays near the hotel, which we're all aware of, having been here once before. It has become the de-facto place for dinner because the other guys are not used to Korean food. It's the typical TGIF décor, but with a slight Korean twist that's hard to put into words. I had the mushroom steak mushroom, medium rare. There were fried mushroom balls and a cheese covered steak, with mushrooms underneath. I've never had cheese on steak, and it was quite an interesting taste, which is not bad, but not really what I want on steak. It was washed down with a poorly mixed Long Island Iced Tea. There is no smoking/non-smoking sections here, so I came back to the hotel smelling like cigarettes.
The second night, we went to a local Korean barbeque place, which had no chairs. We had to sit on the floor, with a short-legged table. There were lots of traditional Korean dishes, with plenty of kimchee. Slabs of beef were cooked on the table top heater, and cut down with scissors. You dip it into a garlic vinegar sauce. There was another dish which was heated over the other stove, with beef strips, and assorted vegetables. The sauce was rather sweet. The most interesting dish, however, is fried silkworm. That's right! SILKWORM! I've had bugs in survival training, but I don't consider them a delicacy. I finally gave into peer pressure and tried one. Lets just say its does not taste like a nut, and you'll end up tasting it for the rest of the evening. We finished the night at the bar within the hotel, and the bartenders were really nice. I had 2 Long Island Iced Teas, which tasted like cough medicine because of the extra Rum in there. However, I was feeling much better.

Tuesday is similar, with breakfast at the hotel, lunch at the customer's, and dinner on our own. We ended up going to TGI Fridays, and I had the filet mignon. I have a feeling we'll eat there a few more times before the week is over. The Oak bar at the hotel was packed tonight for some reason, and the lady behind the bar apologized profusely, and asked us to come back in a half hour, but we called it a night instead.

TGI Fridays again on Wednesday night, and I had the grilled salmon this time. We stopped into the Oak bar, and it was empty. I had a Red Rock and a Belgian beer at TGIF, and continued with a Long Island iced tea and a bottle of Cass, a local brew that's very light. The buzz put me to sleep right away, and I slept like a baby. The others had hangovers during the conference call, and I was feeling a bit more sleepy.

We found out on Thursday that we need to extend our stay by a week, now returning on 10/8. I called to reschedule my flights, and to put me on United this time. I've not figured out how get the new tickets, or what to do with the old tickets. For Thursday 's dinner, we thought we'd try something else, since TGI Fridays is getting a bit old by now. We wanted to try the American style restaurant at the hotel, but it was closed by 8pm. There were some other restaurants on the same floor - Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. We chose the Chinese one, and the name on the door says "Phoenix City" in Chinese characters. Not being familiar with Asian cuisine, my colleagues let me do the ordering. We had shark fin soup, which had mushrooms, shrimp, crab meat, sea cucumber, and shark fin slices, fried shrimp balls, with a very good brown sauce, lobster chunks with vegetables, and kung pao chicken. All that was washed down with a half-liter bottle of Lager beer each. Lager is a local brew, similar to light beer. We turned in early, deciding to do the bar thing every other day. The dial up from the hotel room is still not working, and I'm just about given up on it.

[This message has been edited by Indurain (edited 10-10-1999).]