Who says you can't float the Han River?

The Han River is not a scenic river. It is not a river that people swim in and it is not a river that people float down, until now. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we're the first or that we'll be the last. All I'm saying is that it is not done... ever.

During the course of my first few days here I was trying to feel everyone out. You know, do you like to do this? Do you like to go here? Really, I was looking for a backpacking buddy. After all, I brought my gear in hopes of this, so I figured I should find out who is in and who is out. My list of potential packers was getting low and I was getting a bit frustrated when I overheard Rhett and Joel discussing a recent trip they had taken on a river. Being the nosey person I am, I butted in and demanded to know what they were talking about.

"Eh? Oh yeah, we're talking about floating down the Han River again." responded Rhett with his thick Canadian accent.

I couldn't have heard right.

"You mean a tributary don't you?" I chimed back.

He shook his head and explained to me what they had done on their previous trip. I was shocked. Why would anybody float down a river that is 1km wide and probably as dirty as the Tennessee, if not worse. We would float down the Harpeth River in Franklin in a canoe or tube the gulch in the Smokies, but this was insane. Knowing that there are limited options in a city this size, I decided I would do it.

So, that morning I rose early, as I often do, to discover that a heavy rain had descended upon Seoul. I called Rhett to see if we were still on. He laughed and dismissed the rain as if it were an early summer shower that would soon pass. I know it's monsoon season, or the end of it I should say, but getting on the Han in the rain does not sound safe. So I went against my better judgment and started the trek to his place. Joel had decided to sleep their the night before after a wild evening of Risk. Seriously, we played Risk and drank way too much. He drank the most, like always. So I got there and was greeted by Rhett getting out his rubber inflatable boat with camouflaged coloring and Joel passed out face down on the floor. Typical. At least he was face down.

After a few minutes of coaxing Joel to get a move on, we were off to Walmart to buy more boats. Each boat is equipped for one child. That's right, one child. Still, we were dedicated. After shuffling through an assortment of boats that had Barbie and My Little Mermaid decals all over them, we spotted ours: The Well Life 808. It had it all. Two paddles, a pump, a rope and its own handy carrying case. I was getting excited. We used to do this all the time and now I was getting the chance to do on the largest river in Korea. Now all we needed was beer and snacks.

The Walmart here is different. Remember, this city is built up, not out. So we found the escalator and made our way to the food section. Scanning over the Korean beers I realized that I had yet to find a preference. I defaulted the decision to the pro's, as I so often do here. They went with Cass, a cheap Korean beer that I'm told is the equivilant to Pabst Blue Ribbon. I asked if there was an equilavnt to Steele Reserve here. They laughed and made some hurtful comment abut my favorite American beer. I decided to let it go. After we had our chicken and beer, we headed to the subway for our day of fun.

This was to be my first subway ride in Seoul. I was excited as I always am and didn't know what to expect. We started walking down the long steps from the main road to the large underground train. It's a huge system. As we walked down, there was a common sight in large cities: a homeless man with a hat siiting in front of his slouched body. This has always been a weakness of mine and I reached into my pocket to fetch some won. Rhett saw me doing this.

"No, don't give him any money." he ordered.

I thought this was cold and somewhat odd too. A Canadian telling an American not to help the poor seemed a little backwards.

"Why?" I asked.

"Do you see his hands?"

I didn't quite understand what he was talking about, so I moved to the opposite side of the stairs to get a better look.

"Now do you see his hands?" he repeated.

The poor gentlemen did not have any hands. This made me feel awful. Why would I not want to help someone who has lost their hands? I was still perplexed why Rhett told me not to give him anything, but with all the people walking up and down the stairs I had walked past the man. It was too late to help him.

I asked Rhett what he thought happend. He told me that usually, in Korea and Japan, when people have no hands or fingers, it is a result of a debt that could not be paid back to the mob. Gruesome huh? He told me not to pay the guy because that money would go to the mob and not to better that man. I didn't care though. The poor guy has no hands. I made a promise to myself that if I saw him again, I'd drop some won into his hat.

I realized that I have yet to tell you about the currency. It's the won and it's about 1 USD to 1000 KRW. Easy as that.

So we arrived at the subway terminal, paid our 1000 won for the ticket and waited for the train to come. I looked around the station which is called Hanti-yeok or Hanti Station. It was so clean. Not any graffiti, trash, bad smells or homeless people. I noticed that the Koreans were becoming increasingly interested in what we were up to. They looked at us and saw four foreigners with shorts, sandals, beer, sunglasses and inlfatable boats. No one asked as it is rude to invade others' privacy here, but I know they wanted to. Our train came and on we went. The inside of the train was normal: Seats, windows and those things to hold on to. We had been moving for about three minutes when the train left the underground world and darted onto a large bridge which spanned the whole Han River. We all looked at the conditions of the water and the sky. It was starting to get sunny. The water was still a thick brown brackish color with a fast current, but the promise of a pretty day in Seoul seemed to override the water conditions. We reached our stop and exited the train.

This was my second time to be across the Han, the first being the Itaewon evening. We started looking for access to the river and were having trouble. We decided it would be best if we asked a local merchant. A 7-11 was spotted (yes, a real 7-11) and we headed that way. As we approached I heard loud music. When we got closer to the source I realized it was Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock". I laughed to myself. We reached the other side of the street and literally tripped over the large stereo that had been set up. In front of the stereo was another hat and another gentleman perched behind it. I looked at his hands and fingers. They were there. Then I looked at his face, he had down syndrome. A guilty feeling washed all over me again, and without hesitation I dropped 200 won in his hat. I joked to myself that the mob couldn't have done that, but realized quickly that that was pretty tasteless. Oh well.

After little luck with the 7-11 guy we decided to just get into a taxi and tell them to stop when we saw a good place to get out. We piled in the car and the driver, who was an older man with gray hair dismissively laughed and lit a Marlboro Red. I thought this to be odd, most Koreans smoke Korean cigarette's. Still, I've only been here a little while. We were dropped off at a huge park that was equipped with pools, soccer fields, baseball fields and basketball goals. It was right on the banks of the Han. In fact, while I was on the bus from the airport I noticed that all of these parks were flooded, some up to the backboard of the basketball goals. We were about three hundred yards from the river still and had to walk the rest of it.

There were people picnicking, practicing dances for school or some other performance, skateboarding on the small skate park and doing anything else people would do at a park. When I say park though forget American parks with grass and trees and instead imagine a mall parking lot with all the above amenities. We made it down to the water, but decided that the attention we were getting at the park was not a good thing, so we walked on. We walked for twenty minutes until Joel had to stop and use the restroom. The restroom was next to a bridge and under that bridge, like most large bridges here, were hundreds of older men drinking, gambling and socializing. Their bikes were parked in long rows next to them. At first I assumed these men were of low social status. In the States most people who hang out under the bridge didn't exactly just finish playing the back nine at the club. These guys might have. Since you can do anything you want in Korea, we figured it was time for a beer. We sat down, still waiting for Joel, and cracked a nice cool Cass beer. Joel finished only to be greeted by the three of us yelling at him and wondering what had taken so long. We chug the beers and I ran to use the restroom too. Luckily I did not have to relieve myself in the same way that Joel did. Upon entering the restroom I saw the toilet... or should I say lavish hole. I believe this is the Turkish bathroom that Uncle John referred to in an earlier comment. I held my breath and was in and out in record time.

After a quick survey, we decided the other side of the Han would be better to enter the current. We climbed up the stairs and walked the 1km to the other side. Of course, we couldn't get down to the river from there, so we cracked another beer in frustration and walked back to our original side. The men under the bridge snickered a bit, but who were they? They were drinking under the bridge, we were drinking on the bridge. Finally we reached our landing where we were to inflate the boats and start our voyage.

As we were inflating our boats with these awful pumps, about twenty kids approached us and started talking to us in broken English and very fast Korean. They thought that if they asked us enough in Korean that we would finally understand.

"Hi, hello, annyeong, hi, bye, hello." they said in what seemed to be in unison.

Still, we just made playful faces at them as we tried to get these boats up and running. Soon adults came to see what we were up to. They did not bother to speak to us, instead they just laughed and smiled. They might have been making fun on the four crazy foreigners, but laughter never makes me feel bad. The boats were ready and we were off.

Dave, Joel and I had no problem getting started. We were like De Soto on the Mississippi, navigating that river with authority and a keen eye. Rhett, on the other hand, is a bigger guy and soon realized that he was going to have a wet day. After a few frustrating attempts to get his boat moving, he too was off. Our day had started after three hours of preparation.

The river moved swiftly and we didn't really need our paddles for propulsion, but rather for steering. After reaching the center of the river, we could start relaxing. People still remained at the landing where we took off and a lot of the kids were riding their bikes along with us shouting and waving the whole time. Kids love foreigners here. Soon a large group of South Korean military men came into view. They were running and shouting as so many military companies do when exercising and just as quickly as they came, they were gone. Only faint shouts could be heard as they ran down the road. We'd hear them a lot that day, but unlike the other Koreans on the shore, they did not look at us. They knew better. I really got to take in the city on that boat. The high rise apartments reaching way up into the sky, the hundreds of beautiful churhes showing their crosses to the heavens, it was all so pretty. The city's architecture changed very little during the course of our day, but the landscape did a lot. There are hills, mountains and valley all over the place. Lush rolling hills ran into rigid and rocky mountains which would give away to the hills only to fall into the calm valleys. I love the scenery here.

We laughed, joked, talked and sang all the way down the river. We would switch between classic rock and great eighties music. "We Built this City on Rock and Roll" by Jefferson Starship, "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor, "Born on the Bayou" by CCR, "Winds of Change" by The Scorpions and "Where the Streets Have No Names" by U2 were all in the repetoire. I think those bands would have appreciated the effort. I know we did.

The sun started to set and we decided to call it a day. We saw an island ahead that had access to the road and we headed that way. A local fisherman with a tired, sun-dried face and brown teeth told us with a smile where the subway was and that concluded our trip. I thought it would be appropriate if I gave a cheers to end our day on the Han River...

"To new friends in Korea... Cheers!"