Pepper and I waited patiently for the 'hotel' shuttle service (it's actually a shuttle taxi operated by the Stay 7 serviced apartments, but... same thing) to appear. We got gestured into a saloon car, and were whisked off in several directions at once. Or so it seemed, anyway.
Our driver and the Marketing Manager/Human Global Positioning System / Impolite pointer of directions brought us around what seemed to be most of the districts in Suwon. We were wildly overcoming centrifugal force while navigating the maze of impatient Korean drivers on their way to being stuck in rush hour. I must comment that drivers in Suwon have levels of impatience surpassing Singapore and New York. Barely 10 nanoseconds pass between the nascent gleam of a green traffic light and the I'm-pressed-for-time-and-you're-a-slow-idiot-driver car honk.
After a lot of gesturing, laughing and u-turning, our Korean Driver/unGPS team finally decide they know where to go and promptly deliver us to a Samsung manufacturing plant. Oops! Wrong building. Attempt number 2 is mildly more successful. They deposit us (after 70 mins of a hot and wild horizontal roller-coaster ride) at the gates of the manufacturing complex and wave us vaguely toward a cluster of boring-looking buildings.
Pepper and I trudge off, confused, but relieved to be let off the Korean Mystery Journey Express. Amidst the monochromatic brown landscape of a pre-spring Korea, this stood out:
No, the building behind isn't the company building. It's a Renault factory.It was a long walk up to the office, sun-drenched but the slowly rising temperature cooled my overheating pate. Imagine having to climb up this to get to the office.
It had to be right at the top...No wonder most of the office people were slim! (later, we found out that it was because of the cafeteria food).
The day passed quickly as we slogged through our alloted Herculean tasks.
Picture of note. Here's an example of the rubbish bin in the meeting room that was our work area:
We got the friendly and helpful Executive Assistant to book us a more knowledgable cabbie, and he got us back to Stay 7 in a wonderous 25 minutes. Hooray for a functioning non-human GPS navigation system!Pepper and I felt a vague desire to try something ethnic, so we wandered around the area near our apartments for a likely establishment. We avoided overly-dingy looking shops, and the far-too-common Japanese restaurants and fake Western joints. We finally ended up at a Korean BBQ place with an untranslated menu, and no chairs. We were offered "Cow!" and "Pig!" and shown to a large, low table, where we able to use foot/sock odours to whet our appetites. One interesting side dish we had was Raw Crab, preserved in honey/chili sauce. It was cold, sweet and lovely, if not cloying. The Cow was delicious! No pics though - too smokey and oily. Go to any Korean BBQ place, and the food might look the same. Just the freshness of the Cow that varies.
After stumbling away from the restaurant and massaging all the kinks out of our sorry joints, Pepper and I decided to assuage our caffeine withdrawal at a place that advertised fresh coffee.
Man, the coffee was the best I'd tasted! Expertly pulled shots, with loving care lavished on each cup served!More, next post!
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