Thursday, Day Nine: Lunch with Lisa in Daegu

Up at 7:30, usual routine (egg option) but a bit rushed as I had to catch a train. I caught a cab at the top of the hill.

Gene and Lisa eating sushi

Lisa in front of coffee shop

The ride up was uneventful and Lisa met me at the station. It is a big station and I wandered around for a few minutes before we met up. She suggested we go downtown to eat so we caught a cab and W4,800 later we were dropped of at the end of a small side street. We walked along it and she couldn't find what she was looking for. I spotted a sushi place and she said she liked sushi so we went in. 

Gene on the street he went to with Lisa

It had booths around a central island where the sushi chefs worked, and the dishes went around on a convayer belt and you took what you wanted. The dishes were different colors and when you were done they'd count the dishes to determine the cost, just like at Lotte last night. 

After lunch we went to a coffee shop, Tom N Tom's and had coffee while we talked some more. I brought Don Clark's book Korean Culture and Customs with me to read on the plane, thinking to leave it with Geoffrey but he said he wouldn't read it, so I took it with me to Daegu and offered it to Lisa; she accepted. Soon she had to get to work and left (after taking a couple of pictures). I stayed and finished the coffee. 

A pavilion commemorating the Movement

I then walked back out to the main street and back the direction the cab had come. I saw the only homeless person I've see sitting along the street dozing. I walked a way along the street, and saw in a park a man on a stage with a microphone shouting instructions and the crowd was following along. After a bit I continued along. At the next major intersection I asked which direction it is to the East Daegu Station and was told it is very far.  I planned to walk a ways then take a cab. I then passed a memorial for the National Debt Repayment Movement. In 1907 women in the whole country turned in their jewelry to pay off the national debt, mostly owed to Japan, in an effort to assert Korean independence. The movement started in Daegu, and the bell seems somehow connected with it.

Two Buddhist nuns in East Daegu Station

After walking some more I hailed a cab and rode the rest of the way. I had plenty of time and mostly sat in the station watching all kinds of people, solders, monks and nuns, business men and women, students. The monk and nuns seemed very out of place in such a busy and glitzy environment.

Here comes the train (in Daegu)

Geoffrey picked me up at the station and we came back to his place where he changed and then went running. When he got back he called Wayne to make arrangements to meet him for dinner, then showered and changed. We met Wayne at the hotel and walked to a little mom and pop place near by that specializes in eel. Of course we had an eel dish. The male owner, head wrapped in something like a bandana and looking like a Hell's Angel, hovered over us telling us what to do until he tried to do something for me and I recoiled (not good manners, and he was trying to help, so I felt bad but I need to decide what I eat). It was a little spicy but OK until I got something that caused me to gag, feeling my throat react. I spit it out. I asked for rice to absorb the spice and after a few minutes it was over. I didn't eat any more eel, but I ate a good bit and what I did eat was really good. Geoffrey found a piece of what ever it was that bothered me and it was too hot for him too. After dinner we walked back to the hotel and left Wayne there, then came home.

We tried to call Natalie and Lynn but got no answer.