Chapter 7
Korea
My ever-growing work in the office – sometimes I remained there half the night – and hitches in my friendship with J., as well as my dreams made me decide I had to have a rest soon, if I did not want to collapse. I decided I would visit Japan the same way my predecessors did it. I went to the Japanese consulate and was informed that I needed an air ticket or a reservation receipt to get visa. O.K., I went to the airlines – to more than one – to make the reservation, but I would have to have a visa for it.
Again Catch 22. I became angry and found another solution. I would go to South-Korea. Hungary had signed a no-visa agreement with that country two years before. I did not tell it anybody, only Joe and J. I even tried to convince her to come along, but she would not.
There was a planned visit of G. again in June, I had to wait for it to pass and ordered my round ticket to Khabarovsk after that. Through small gifts I established a good relationship with a lady at Aeroflot to get the diplomatic discount of 50 percent on the Khabarovsk-Seoul flight. Alas, the Far-East Aeroflot branch had become independent and I would have to risk flying to Khabarovsk before I would know I would get it or would not.
The visit of G. and his colleagues to Moscow has been undertaken with their caravan-bus and, as the driver has not been used to Russian roads, the rubber cushion of one of the air springs was destroyed. I got a call from them to order the parts through TNT delivery. We had a hard task to get it. The Russians would not have too much respect for names as TNT, DHL, etc. I had to go through all official formalities to get it.
There were programs for the crew as Zagorsk, but their goal for the visit has not been achieved. Either the Russians considered us competitors, or the whole business had gone aground, but it was a failure. In a short time our tourist business would be dissolved by our management and G. would have to find himself a new employer.
Then followed my one-week-long excursion to Korea. I agreed with Joe that at home nobody was to know my whereabouts. I have been ill, on the agency, out-of-town to help a driver, but nothing of the truth. He undertook to replace me completely in that time.
I did not need his assistance to take me to the airport, I discovered that Aeroflot buses to the airports are reliable, if only slow. I went to the Domodedovo airport with only a handbag and a shoulder bag. The latter contained my photographic equipment. To Khabarovsk I had a pleasant 8-hour flight.
I had about three hours to get my ticket and I wanted it by getting my discount. I went to the ticket office to a typical blond Russian girl and told her my intention. I gave her my diplomatic ID card, too. She said the obvious answer at once, it was impossible. I took the bottle of whisky brought along for this purpose and put it in front of her. She pretended not to notice it. Anyway, she went out of her booth after a 10-minute pause, placing the bottle under the counter. Half success. She returned and said she had not found her boss, I was to wait. I did and, after two more walks the girl gave me my round ticket on discount.
Check-in has not been hard, only I had to convince the frontier guard that I, a Hungarian, did not need a visa. From Khabarovsk to Seoul the flight has been only two hours. Arriving at the airport I went to the information desk to get a hotel address. They offered me a room for 160 dollars a night. I asked for something cheaper. They motioned me to the right. There tourist agents were offering rooms for 50 a night. When I wanted even cheaper they showed me to a newspaper booth. There the woman was all smiles and said, O.K., she had one for about 15 dollars a night. That would do.
She called to somewhere by phone and gave me a visiting card of a hotel owner. At the back there was a map of the surroundings, it was in the very centre of the city. The bus took me to the centre and after a 300-foot walk I found the "hotel”. It was a 3-story building about 15 feet in width. But it was a very fine place fit for my needs. I have got a room on the 3rd floor. It had a hall of 3 by 5 feet with a wardrobe – not necessary as I had but one jacket –, a bathroom of 5 by 4 feet and a "bedroom” of 5 by 8 feet. There was no bed, only a bundle of bedsheets and covers, a small shelf of 1 by 2 by 2 feet and a clothes-rack on the wall above it.
The sandwich mattress-bedsheet-cover had to be unrolled for use and rolled in again in the morning. There was a low table – about 6 inches in height – in the lobby that could be taken for breakfast and put out again after. On the shelf a phone-set and a TV-set have been placed.
I spent all my time discovering the city and the country. I soon discovered the big marketplace near the hotel and a small restaurant on the second floor of a narrow building. I made it into my usual place for lunch, the extremely high intelligence of the owner and his people has astonished me first, but to the time of my departure I learned, they have all been similar in that respect. I had to establish that I had never been in such a country, where people are exotic and intelligent at the same time.
I decided to see the country, too. My first trip has been to the south to Suwan by the suburban train. My goal has been the Korean Folk Village standing exhibition. I liked it very much and decided to go to other parts of the country. Back to town I went to the airlines and bought an air ticket to the island of Chaeju, about 55 miles from the southern tip of the country. I got my ticket on Thursday.
Wednesday I went to Inchon, where the Korean War had begun. It was a vast harbour town, but it also had an artificial beach made by dredging. I enjoyed swimming and sun-bathing, but it soon became boring and I went back to Seoul. The afternoon I spent discovering Seoul Tower and the botanical garden around it. Sight from the tower has been dim for the moist air, I could not see the North-Korean side at all.
My finest experience has been my trip to Chaeju. From the airport at the northern shore I rode a bus to the greatest hotel complexes in the south. The island had an extinct volcano in the middle and – it has been written in the info, but I did not ascended it – there was a lake on top of it. All cliffs were black as coal, I guessed it must have been a very young place in a geological sense.
The remaining two and a half days I spent all in the capital. I even tried to ascend one of the two steep hills, but I lost my way and almost fell into panic. I could come down only, when I went back almost to top and found the fork, where I had been mistaken.
This week of rest served me well. Not only would I become sun-tanned, my soap opera dreams have been finished. I think I came back from the brink of collapse. I took my camcorder and and went to the bank of the river Amur to see all and to record some of my experiences. From my competitions two decades before I still knew all, only in the monuments have been some changes. After the Korean villages and towns it looked a little too Asian.
It was a Monday and the next day Joe gave me all the information. He could avoid all problems and nobody knew about my trip. The same evening I called J. and she agreed to come to me and see my pictures. She regretted her rejection, but she knew it was her mistake. I learned she had moved again to another flat as her previous one became needed to the owner. She told me she was soon going home, she wanted to have some common excursions with me. We agreed in Borodino and went there on Sunday.
It was a fine excursion, although my car has almost let me down. There was a faulty connection somewhere and sometimes it would not start. I didn’t make any pictures, but recorded Borodino on my camcorder.