Postage Stamps

A subtle lesson that Korea (and Asia) will teach you is that it is not wise to make assumptions about the local post office. Show Time Judy makes an excellent comparison between North American Post Offices and their Korean counterparts and the one thing that struck me was use of self-adhesive technology in Korean stamps.

The U.S. currently uses self-adhesive stamps, the sticker kind that don't rely on licking the back. Sometime in my life this stamped replaced the water-activated stamp (the stamp stereotype) but here in Korea they have rejected all self-adhesive technology and instead rely on a glue stick within the post office (or home) for the postage gum. Funny enough, greeting card envelopes and other items that are self-adhesive in the U.S. are gum-free in Korea.

Now, let's side track into India. While the good folk in Korea may not have discovered self-adhesive technology, the even better folks in India have yet to discovered glue dispensing technology. Seriously. I went into one post office to get rid of my collection of postcards and I had the damnedest problem trying to get my stamps to stick. Thanks to my experience in Korea I suspected that I was dealing with gum-free paper.

I tried to ask where the glue was and was told 'glue is outside.' By outside the nice old aunty-ji meant the nice old courtyard in the back, with some benches, a fountain, and one sad looking wooden desk under a glue stick tied to a tree. And by glue stick I mean I mean a stick in a pot of glue. You literally had to dip the stick and spread the glue, mastering the art of just getting enough for a quick dry. Of course it wasn't until I gave the stick to the person next in line that I saw that the proper way to use the glue stick is to wipe the glue with your finger and then spread the glue on the stamps; fingers are rinsed in the courtesy fountain and you can sit on the benches while you wait for the glue to dry.

Incheon Airport to Mokpo Bus

If, after you're done escaping Mokpo, you actually want to get back here, the easiest way is to grab the same Korean Komfort Mokpo to Incheon Airport bus, except in the other direction. It's the same deal at ₩33,600 (plus ₩2,000 booking fee) per seat, except that now your two choices Mokpo choices leave Incheon Aiport at:

• 8:40 am
• 6:20 pm

And again, if you miss the Mokpo bus you can always catch the more frequent bus to Gwangju.

I thought that Kumho, the people responsible for the buses leaving Mokpo, would also be responsible for the buses leaving the airport. But there's no airport option on their website. Instead there's Airportbus where tickets can be bought in a pimp-like fashion that explains the extra ₩2,000 service charge.

The Airportbus site is only in Korean and the routes and fees table seems to only care about major routes, i.e. Mokpo is missing but the information for Gwangju (광주) is accurate. The color coded words at the top of the table (일반, 우등 and 심야 ) translate into general, superior, and late night services, and demand different prices. There is a schedule posted at the airport, photographed and included here for your planning pleasure:



Update: There is an English Schedule maintained by the Airport itself. It's simple to use and presents Mokpo is a nice little table & map combination.

Winter Heating

For some reason Koreans seem proud of their four seasons. Maybe it's pride is too strong a word, but Koreans at my school take extra care to inform me of the special days when one season starts and the other season begins. It's a little bit eerie since the only other people that I know who do this are Wiccans.

Of course conflicts occurs when the foreigner perceives a season starting too late or (in my case) too soon. For example, no matter how cold it gets in November the school will not turn on the heating system until December.

Although the temperatures are approaching the freezing point, Koreans do not push the little button that magically warms the room. Whether the venue be school, work, a store, or a restaurant, Koreans are either completely indifferent to temperature preference or everyone is too cheap to warm up the air to be a little more comfortable. It kind of reminds me of my Dad and how he wouldn't turn on the furnace until December, but to the extreme! "Just put on a sweater." Sorry Dad. It is so cold inside that no one bothers taking off their winter jackets once they get inside.

For a little perspective this isn't a case of bring a sweater to work, my school is so poorly insulated that there are literally gaps in the windows where the wind whistles through.; my average English classroom temperature is 10C. I walk around the school to find that windows are left wide open. Given all of the other examples of Korean Komfort, I can't understand the mentality towards winter heating. I'm not alone questioning this logic:

First off, I can't feel my toes and am super cold because there is no real heating system in my school and I have to wear open toe slippers at work. There's only heating in the office and maybe the classroom, not sure if the heat is just from the number of students haha. The rest of the school is freezing and as everyone complains about the temperature, pretty much every window is wide open. Sigh...my friends and I have been saying that when in Korea, take anything that seems the most illogical and apply here because that's how it seems to work haha.

Mokpo to Incheon Airport Bus

Escaping Mokpo by bus often leads to escaping Korea by plane and thanks to the Mokpo to Inchean Airport express bus, it's super easy and confortable.

The bus itself is amazing and is a perfect symbol of Korean Komfort, the Korean desire for comfortable living in all aspects of life. It is a full length passenger bus outfitted with plenty of leg room thanks to the igneous idea to only use 3 seats per row. The seats themselves are comparable to those in first class air travel; all seats are fully reclinable, equipped with foot rest and plenty of space to curl up and fall back asleep.

There are actually two Mokpo to Inchean buses, both operated by Kumho and sheduled on the Express Bus Lines Association's Kobus site:

• The 2:30 am bus.
  
• The 9:00 am bus.
  

As scary as it sounds, the 2:30 am option is extremely popular with both the locals and the foreigners since, all things considered, this is the main artery to Seoul's International Airport and all of its day flights. Purchase tickets well in advance, either by navigating through the Korean part of the Kobus site and using a Korean credit card or by visiting the ticket counter at the Mokpo Bus Station.

If you do find yourself out of luck, your closest option is to catch a cross-country bus to Gwangju and take one of the many airport bus running out of that station, discoverable via the same Kobus trip planner.