Asia Update #35 - A visitor from the States

Here is the first of three which I will be uploading at about the same time. Sorry about the delay in publishing updates. My ladyfriend is visiting, and we both took a two week vacation. Split the time between Korea and Thailand. Well needed vacation for both of us - we had a great time.

The day after she arrived, we entered what we were told was a half marathon. She's a runner and has done a couple of full marathons, so we figured that she could handle this half-marathon, even with jet lag. Well, it wasn't quite what we expected.

To start with, the English words on the sign said nothing about marathon. Or even about a running race. They called it a 'climbathon', which turned out to be quite appropriate. It was on hiking trails that were quite steep. Not quite rock climbing, but it seemed close. There were many areas where you had to use your hands to help you climb up. The descents were no better. Very steep. We took it relatively easy on them, but the Koreans didn't. They seem to have this no fear attitude about descending. Saw a few knee injuries. To add to this, the race was pretty much unsupported. No food or drink given out on the course, even though most took 3 or more hours to finish. And the course wasn't closed to outsiders, so we were often running around groups of hikers. The picture below was from Pukansan (where the race was) and is an example of some of the less severe areas of the course.

Spent the next few days sightseeing and shopping. We must have looked pretty sad as we were constantly limping and had trouble climbing stairs due to having strained our quads and calves in the race.

Tuesday (May 1) was the celebration of Buddha's birthday. May Day is also considered labor day in many countries, including Korea. Daewoo Motor workers took this is an opportunity to protest recent layoffs and the potential sale to General Motors. Our first indication that this was going on was when we exited out from the subway at my local train station to find scores of riot police waiting all lined up on the sides.

Returned to the area later to meet some friends for dinner, and found the police were out in even greater force. We crossed the street using the subway underpass, and when returning to our side, had the police move from being lined up at the side to blocking the entire entrance. They did let us through, but did stop a group of what looked like college students. In the end, they did let these folks through and nothing happened, but it was still surprising. Below is a picture of the underpass we came through and the police blocking the passage.

The papers the next day reported that there were some 25,000 protesters and some 15,000 police. The protests were still close to a half mile away, so I can't confirm their numbers. But based on the hundreds (maybe more than a thousand) of police officers I saw where we were at, I think the police head count is quite likely to be true.

With so many police around, there were plenty of opportunities to take pictures of the police. After a little hesitancy because of all the signs in other areas of the country saying that you can't take pictures, I finally figured out that there wouldn't be any problems taking pictures of the police, or even with the police…

Didn't quite get up the guts to ask one to let me wear his helmet and hold his shield…

Ok, you've heard me mention about my 'lady friend' a few times, yet I've never shown a picture. Well, here is the first one for you… She is reading the sign at one of the gates to the Pukansan Mountain Fortress. The race took us through a few of these gates, but their significance and history was lost on us as we were just trying to survive the event.

I know - the photo is not the best in regards to seeing what she looks like. Maybe I'll show you more of her in a later update…