4 April 2019
Pancakes?
The cherry blossoms and LED covered mall of Daejeon
I had no preconceptions of what to expect in Daejeon. All the other cities I am visiting on this trip are mega cities, Daejeon is 1.5 million people. So I guess I was expecting it to be very quiet, no people, only place to eat is the train station, kind of like Nagano in Japan. Well Nagano is about 300k people, which is a lot less than 1.5 million, so comparatively, Daejeon is a megalopolis.
Also, I can now give a definitive blossom update, Daejeon is in peak blossom, Seoul is yet to blossom into blossom. Perhaps when I am back in Seoul on Monday it will be in blossom. Thats enough blossom.
So my initial thoughts of Daejeon are positive, the area around my hotel is mainly bars and karaoke lounges, but also calling cards of in room massage services littering the footpath, so maybe I will get a knock on the door later? But on that note, my room has a double door, the door you open with the keycard leads into a little entranceway where you can take your shoes off, and then there is a second door with another physical lock that seems to only lock from the inside, just in case someone with a room key tries to break in and hold me hostage.
Now I must remember 2 things from the train earlier that I forgot to mention before. I could go up and edit the above story but thats not my style, no editing! At one point a train employee girl walked past, and an old man yelled at her, I had no idea what about, she went to the end of the carriage, opened a locker and came back with a pill / tablet and gave it to him. Having seen this occur 3 other old folks decided they also needed a tablet. I Watched them carefully, they all took the tablet, and 5 minutes later, they were all fast asleep, snoring. So I think if you ask for it on a Korean train they will give you knock out pills.
The other silly thing that occurred was right across from me, a young couple had their feed boxes (bentos), and for the entire hour of my trip, they fed each other piece by piece of blood sausage and garlic sliced pig ear delicately using chopsticks. They never broke eye contact except for a few seconds to select the next dead thing to feed each other for the entire hour.
Korea does not have the same level of vending machines as Japan, sure there are drink machines everywhere, but one thing they have a stupidly large amount of is flower vending machines. Generally in subway stations. I guess this is for the businessman coming home late and drunk to apologise on arrival.
I got off a couple of stations in advance of where I was headed to extend my walk, the journey ahead doesnt look too bad?
Eventually I got to this awesome bridge. A nice spot.
As mentioned above, Daejeon is in peak blossom. Do I suffer from hayfever? Last year I thought I did. I dont know. Is it real or a state of mind? Is it contagious? Is it reason for people to not go to work and stay home to watch reality tv?
I like the bridge enough to take another photo.
Its a love heart, some sort of satanic moon symbol, and cherry blossoms. Oh and someone has put a bag of rubbish on it and two girls are taking selfies with the rubbish.
Between the bridge and the main station is the old market, its enormous, I barely scratched the surface. It wasnt all fish, there were clothes, places to eat, book stores etc.
I saw these all over Seoul and now I am seeing one here also. At first I thought it was for the mail delivery, it is motorized. But in Seoul I saw one which I think was delivering soy milk to peoples homes in those old falling down suburbs with steep streets. Now I am seeing this one which is just an iced coffee van. So there you go, in Korea everything gets delivered in a little robotic motorized cart thing.
Thats a very interesting sign.
I crossed the road and realised I was on the wrong side of the road. Actually I exaggerate, all of Daejeon that I have seen is quite nice, very clean, modern, apart from this one building.
The main shopping street has a very impressive, very high, fully animated LED roof. I recently (this time last year) saw a similar one in Zhengzhou. Eventually the whole sky will be animated like this, delivering horizon to horizon tampon ads to us all.
There are many many streets like this one, tomorrow night or one of the other nights I will show the similar but different neon nearer my hotel, which is less about shops and cafes and more about karaoke and beer.
For my dinner I had some street food things, some mandoo (dumplings) and tteokbokki (rice stick in chilli sauce). These were impossible to photograph as I needed both hands just to hold it and had to eat standing up. I realised I couldnt possibly go to sleep without having posted a photo of food, so I stopped and had some pancakes. They were ok, quite flavourless. At f/2 my focal plain is very thin. Ponder that. Thats all for now, tomorrow I might go to a national park.