A day in the mud!

Yesterday was a fieldwork day and a lot happened so I thought I would right up my general impressions of the day before I forgot. I met up with Eunae and the two high school students (whose names I have no idea as to how to spell so I won’t try) outside my dorm at 8 or so and headed for the train station. From there we had to head out to the blue line and take it all the way out to Incheon (about an hour’s ride). After a taxi to the ferry we had to wait for everyone else to meet up before heading out to Jakyakdo, a small island about 15-20 minutes ride away. There we geared up and spent the low tide (which was maximal at 1pm) going around the island looking for things. The island started rocky and then became a huge mudflat before becoming rocky again. In about 3 hours we made it all the way around the island (though we could have made it in less than 1 hour I think if we hadn’t been looking and collecting along the way). Then we gathered everything, looked through what we had collected (fixing a few right there and packing the rest live to be fixed in the lab), grabbed the ferry and headed back. None of us had actually had a meal since breakfast (just snacking on bananas and some fancy bread) so Dr. Song had us stop for a meal. Then we headed back on the long train ride back, brought the specimens up and fixed them.

So there is a bare-bones description of what happened but there are few points worth going into more detail…

First and foremost, Dr. Song is a force of nature. One she gets started, she just goes and you have to really fight to keep up with her. It’s pretty funny actually.

Also, it’s funny how different labs do things. The way this group preps for field work is a bit different from how I do it, particularly their insistence that everyone get a giant set of forceps and a spoon (both on loops that go around your hands). Honestly, a butter knife would have been more helpful in my opinion.

I’m really sorry that I didn’t have my camera to take pictures during this…there are some pictures from the lab camera that I grabbed so I have something from this which I will post on facebook sometime.

I never fail to hurt myself in some way during fieldwork. Usually it is my legs but this time I was wearing waders so the most I could do was bruise my leg (which I did too). But the bad cuts were on my arms this time. Not that they were that bad…they really weren’t and didn’t hurt much (though they are a little sore today). However, cuts on both arms bled like no one’s business. Suddenly there were huge drops of blood on the rocks and on my gloves and it took me a minute to figure out that it was me. The lab kind of freaked out about it (and still seem very worried about it today) but they really are not bad at all.

When working through a mud flat and you are given the option of waders that are too big or too small, definitely pick the too small one. I had waders that were too big, which resulted in me literally getting stuck in the mud. Every time I would go to move my leg, my foot would pop out of the boot and I would have to fight to stay upright (which was not always successful). I had to work so hard to move around that I had to have burned a lot of calories. It was extremely frustrating…but what can you do but laugh. Particularly when a high school student runs over with a shovel to help dig you out…twice.

And, by the way, the waders did not even work that well. When I got out, I could tell I was a bit wet before I got out, but I figured that I had sweat a lot working through the mud. But once I saw how wet I was…I definitely did not sweat that much! Sung-Jin said that hers didn’t work to well either and her pants were clearly wet too. Good thing we both wore fast drying pants. Should have brought an extra shirt though…

When we got back to the Incheon station, Dr. Song decided that we should have dinner in the Chinatown across the street but she didn’t want to bother to bring all the stuff we were carrying so she just went into a police station and asked them to watch our stuff. Judging from the reactions of her students, I don’t think you can generally treat the police station as a storage facility but she is an older woman in a culture that demands respect for someone of age, so what are the police going to do? Obviously, they said yes. The whole exchange was really amusing.

We had a good dinner at a random Chinese resturant in Incheon’s Chinatown. This dinner included drinks and a toast and is officially the first time I have drunk with my lab.

We got back to the lab at about 8 or 8:30 but I didn’t leave until after 11. It took me that long to fix all of my material. And I still had to spend time today making a spreadsheet of samples and better labeling the things I have (I did a pretty quick an dirty labeling yesterday). So it was a very long day. I was going to leave early today to go to a baseball game, but it has rained out so no go. I don’t think I am going to go anywhere or do anything tonight. I’m just going to chill out and relax I think. Save some money for another day (which by the way, I only spent about $4 dollars yesterday and that was off my transit card so really I spent nothing yesterday).

Overall, I got 5 species, including 2 I really wanted. Honestly, there was only one other species at the site that I would have liked to have so it worked out well. Plus the trip was fun so overall it was a very good day.

Quick update

Just a few thoughts...

1. The Seoul subway is awesome. Easy, clean, fast...why can't we have this at home?
2. I really starting to feel comfortable in my lab much in the way I am comfortable at home. This is mostly because Eunae is awesome and goes out of her way to help me. We never had a formal welcome party for me like we did in Japan, but I am much more at ease here than I ever was in that Japan. But some of that may also be that I am more comfortable with myself too. I'll probably never know.
3. Having people to hang out with in town is really nice and I appreciate it. But going to the shrine by myself this weekend reminded me that it is really great to travel by yourself sometimes.
4. This coming weekend I am taking Friday off and heading to Jeju Island which is supposed to be beautiful. Hiking, biking, beaches and super cool looking lava caves will be the order of the day. And since I get in 4 hours before everyone else (I get there at like 8 am, everyone else gets in from 12-1 or later), I think I am going to take the morning to do the lava caves on my own. (see here for where I am going).
5. If I don't break my dorm door before I leave it will be a miracle. I can't tell you how annoying it is to have a door that speaks to you EVERY time you open/close/or touch the door. Shut up stupid door!
6. They eat fresh (raw) priapulids here! And how I discovered that is kind of a funny story for another time.

Japan vs Korea (for research experince anyway)

I know I should really try to avoid comparing my Korean experince to my Japanese one, but I can’t help it really. In a couple of ways I am already clearly better off then I was in Japan.

1. I am not isolated as I was in Japan (which was both a good thing and a bad thing, but did make several things harder).

2. I have actually gotten to know several of the other participants better than the ones I knew in Japan. I never really clicked with a lot of people in the Japan program (I think the huge size overwhelmed me a bit, plus I realize that I am a bit of a different person now). There are only a few from Japan that I have kept in touch with, but I think (and hope) that number will be far greater for this trip. The women of the group all seem awesome and I like all the guys (though I admit one or two of them got on my nerves a little after spending soo much time together during orientation-but I think that was just a result of spending too much time together).

3. The lab here understands what I do far better than I think Kubuto sensei ever did-mostly because they use nematocysts in their studies too. I don’t think that they completely understand though, and a few comments have been made about cnidae which make me wince…but I’m not sure how to correct some of the misinformation they seem to have.

4. The women in the lab talk to each other! Some of it is seems to be small talk, most of it I think is related to work, but either way, it is not silent in the office or lab during the day. Any no one brings their lunch so I have someone to eat with every day. In my Japanese lab, people rarely talked to each other and the constant silence nearly drove me crazy (although I don’t understand what they are saying in the lab here, I find it comforting that some social interaction is going on). And I rarely got asked to go to lunch. Of course in Japan, every one was technically in different labs (as is often the case at marine stations) and everyone cooked for themselves for lunch (as going into town would be quite a hassle), but still, it is a big difference.

5. Another thing, while most of us have been wearing pants to the office simply because it is a little chilly in there, I have seen some women wearing shorts. This makes me happy because I will occasionally wear shorts too (I wore them all the time in Japan because it was just soo hot everywhere) and I will not be the only one wearing them as I was in Japan!

So overall, my experince has been a good one so far. The one major down point is that I was much better equipped with Japanese than I am with Korean. I just don’t know as many words/phrases in Korean as I do in Japanese and the whole language is harder for me for some reason. I will need to force myself out of my shell to go out and try some things here (which to be honest, I had to do in Japan too-I think my memory is making Japan seem easier than it was).

We have planned field work for the 15th so I will do light microscope data with the samples I brought until then. And I have a paper that I am finally getting good work done on. So I’ve managed to keep myself busy..except today where I haven’t been able to focus. I blame the fact that it’s Friday and my feet have been wet all day. Who can focus with wet feet?
Okay, this post ended up being a lot of nothing, but there you go. You all know that I tend to ramble…