Crews take part in a training session during day two of the 2013 World Rowing Championships in Chungju, South Korea. Photo / Getty Images
Arriving on the Korean peninsula, I find myself humming the M*A*S*H theme.
Yet the tune Suicide Is Painless seems wholly inappropriate as I embark on a three-hour drive from Seoul's Incheon airport into the lush hinterland for the rowing world championships where New Zealand's best oarsmen and women are expected to enhance the country's medal tally this week.
South Korea, or officially the Republic of Korea, is a hotbed of infrastructure and development; a far cry from the desolate scenes of the 1950-53 war in which the telly series and movie were set. A labyrinth of highways and tunnels snake through verdant countryside while industrial-sized lego blocks form high-rise apartments on the outskirts of the capital. They're not short of concrete.
To highlight this, the 21km Incheon Bridge links the airport to the mainland after you first pass an odd-looking structure resembling a torpedo sitting atop an egg. Make what you will of the sculpture "flying to the future"; Sigmund Freud would have. It would also have kept Hawkeye Pierce in puerile material for at least an episode at 'the 4077th'.
Still, it seems any city wanting to assert itself needs a decent phallic structure. Cue Paris' La Tour Eiffel, Dubai's Burj Khalifa or Auckland's Sky Tower. According to the Incheon Airport website, the sculpture was built after the design won a competition in September 2007. They claim it provides visitors with "an unforgettable memory" of their visit. Can't argue.
The locals strike as polite. From shopkeepers to airport security to restaurant staff, they offer genuine help, in addition to the volunteer army at the rowing venue. I do a deal for a phone when a local chap establishes - through sign language and a spot of Pictionary - that my circa 20th century brick (reserved for overseas sim cards) will not co-operate with the country's minimum telecommunications threshold of a 3G network. Texts and calls simply will not do. We shake hands before he bows deeply and I find myself almost touching my toes to reciprocate. That's the spirit.
The regatta organisers get local driver Seop to deliver me to the hotel in Suanbo, a central skiing village. Seop is a steady hand and makes a brief stop midway to simultaneously smoke a cigarette and engage in something resembling tai chi. I applaud his multi-tasking. He chuckles. What a hoot. Our lack of conversation - we share about 10 words, three of which are 'air con good' - belie the universal level of understanding at play. Seop knows I have his back when he engages in a lengthy ding-dong with toll booth operators 10 minutes from the destination. At one stage the body language is so frenetic a burst of Gangnam Style dancing seems imminent. Eventually Seop triumphs and we leave some tyre marks in our getaway. I ponder whether the Prime Minister had as eventful an arrival on his recent free trade mission.
Despite concerted efforts to eat local, the food is proving a dilemma. The rowers, under some sort of international sporting covenant, get whatever governing body FISA demands on their behalf. The rest of us? Well, you take your chances. I ask the genial hotel waiter for duck and receive a banquet and a beer instead, albeit for less than $25.
Six plates of largely unidentifiable vegetables and two soups peer at me along with a bottle of the brew Cass - slogan: 'the sound of vitality'.
The delicacy kimchi (spiced cabbage) set my mouth, rather than the world, on fire but the thought no bug could survive a battle with those chillies offers some respite.
Shredded seaweed remains an acquired taste and the bean curd soup tasted promising (well, it was salty) until a prawn head floated from its depths. The bowl of rice began to look like Michelin-star fare. I consoled myself with the thought it was infinitely better than what millions would be eating north of the 38th parallel, and nothing on the plates looked like it might've once barked (a tradition dating back centuries in Korea). It shames me to admit it, but I made a mental note to get a war chest of chocolate bars and chips as insurance, just in case further restaurant expeditions were as unsuccessful.
I returned to my room. The line "love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction" is emblazoned across a wallpaper consisting of Korea's national flower the rose of Sharon. Korea and I just need a few more days to get in sync.
Andrew Alderson travelled to South Korea courtesy of Rowing New Zealand's principal partner Bankstream