21.09.2007: crossed (like a book)

Wow, three new entries in three days. This has to be a record, no?

I mainly wanted to tell you that I released a book into the wild today - my first one in a foreign country. If you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about ... well, that's a fair thing to be wondering. Let me try to unvague things a little.

There's a website called www.bookcrossing.com which I learned about fairly recently from my friends Benji and Amber. (Thanks guys - you rock!) At its best, it works a bit like a lending library, except that the entire planet is its shelving system and everyone can be the librarian at once. At its worst, it's a creative way to get rid of some paper products.

Basically, if you've got any books that you enjoyed, but which you'll probably never read again, www.bookcrossing.com lets you share these titles with other people by 'releasing' them. They're technically still yours, but they're on loan to the world. This can all be done pretty simply: you go to the site, register the book you want to release, and get a catalogue number for it. Using one of the downloadable labels on the site, you put the catalogue number inside the book cover. (The label also contains an explanation of what book crossing is all about.)

Then you go to a place of your choice and just leave the book there.

There are a lot of 'crossing zones' around the world; for example, there's a cafe called Tiffany's in Sydney's Imperial Arcade which has a big basket full of books sitting inside the door, all released by book crossers. But that's just one random example of thousands - crossing zones exist in many countries. You can release your books at an official zone if you want to (after using the site to locate one in your city), or you can get a bit more daring and just leave the book at a random place 'in the wild'. Crossers leave their books everywhere from food halls to buses to the tops of mountains, in the hope that someone will pick them up and join the game.

When someone finds your book, and if they're willing to play along, they go to www.bookcrossing.com and say that the book is in their possession (using the registration number to identify it). After they've read the book they can make comments and release it again, maybe at a different location. In this way, your books can go travelling without you - but if they find good travel companions, you'll be able to track their journey.

So that's what I meant in the opening paragraph.

Before I left Sydney I registered some of my books and set them free around the city, mostly at Tiffany's cafe. I also picked up someone else's book at a crossing zone. I left it here at Kim's Guest House, which is a hangout for English-, German- and Japanese-speaking travellers (especially English teachers, for some reason). Then I made release notes on the site, to let the original owner know that one of her books was on holiday in South Korea. I think she was pretty pleased!

The other thing I did today was get my visa - though only just. The embassy had told me I could turn up any time between midday and 1pm, so of course I aimed for midday. When I reached Hongje station (the closest one to the embassy) I still had almost a whole hour up my sleeve. However, I still had another leg of the journey to go, this one by taxi. In theory it should've been a 5-10 minute drive. Twenty minutes later, my taxi driver had managed to get us hopelessly lost. We ended up winding our way around a mountain (admittedly not a difficult thing to do in South Korea, which is about 70% mountains), with the driver repeatedly getting out of the car to bail up passers-by and ask for directions. There were times when I knew he was taking a wrong turn, but unfortunately I can't say "This is completely wrong! Please, you have to go back!" in Korean. Nor can I say "Look, I'm in a huge hurry here, can you radio your company or something?" So the mountain-winding continued for a long time, with the clock ticking towards 1pm and my visa application looking more and more doomed with every passing minute.

The whole debacle was made even more frustrating by the fact that Korean taxis are actually fitted with a computerised navigation system which allows drivers to type in any destination and be guided to it by an arrow on the screen. I didn't actually know this until my driver turned it on - at about ten minutes to one! Apparently (I was told later), reliance on the navigation system is the mark of an inepxerienced driver, so as a matter of professional honour they usually don't turn on their navigators unless they really have to.

*rolls eyes*

Stupid professional honour!

Somehow we eventually found ourselves in the right street, but Mr. We-Don't-Need-No-Navigation wouldn't be discouraged from driving straight past the building I was madly pointing to. He insisted that we needed to go further - right down to the bottom of a very steep hill, as it turned out. When I got out of the taxi the time was 12:58pm, which left me two minutes to pay the driver, run up the hill, climb the stairs to the embassy and join the queue. Fortunately, when I got through the door (at exactly 1pm) the woman at the counter recognised me and waved me forward. "Everything is ready", she said. "You can take your documents". And that was it: with literally no time to spare, I'd got what I came for. Suddenly the need to stress about immigration issues had evaporated, and I had three or four days to explore South Korea in any manner I chose.

I'm sure you won't be surprised when I tell you that I've got some pretty sizeable plans for the coming days. Next time you're at the Manor, you can read all about them. With pictures this time :-)