SPECTACULAR
SWISS ALPS!
THE MATTERHORN, THE EIGER AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
BALTIC SEA BLISSFULLY ADRIFT ON THE BLUE
NICARAGUA
SEOUL
FROM PRIDE TO PUNK ROCK, GWANGJANG TO GAMING IT’S NOT ALL K-POP IN THE KITSCHY KOREAN CAPITAL
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IN THIS ISSUE
D
6 9 Tripping The Fringe 10 On More under-reported,
Runway Nobody write(r)s it like Outpost
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To soar to new heights, step out the door
quirky-human, natural-world stories: the jet-set life of personal flying devices, there’s no place like home for the world’s best pizza, and how far could you spit a poop ball?
Baggage 13 Excess By Simon Vaughan
Our super senior correspondent tries to answer an enduring eco-mystery—why are mosquitoes so damn irritating?!
21 Adrift on the Continent
By Ryan Murdock
Our roving editor-at-large travels to the Baltic Sea and discovers a little known land where the sun sits high
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60
SIN CITY SEOUL Story by Dave Hazzan, Photos by Jo Turner
All work, no play once made the Korean capital a sober and somber city. But the dictators are gone, the economy is booming, and the culture and the nightlife are exploding. From gaming to Gwangjang, punk rock to kimchi, one longtime expat bares it all
27
WHO (DIDN’T) LET THE IGUANAS OUT?
Enter to WIN
2 Tickets to AMAZING Istanbul
Story and Photos by Lena Desmond
Nicaraguans have developed a taste for the world’s fastest lizard and one traveller goes on the hunt to find out why
38
THE OUTPOST VIEW: FROM THE SWISS ALPS Part mountain, part legend, where unpredictability can be the only certainty. Team Outpost heads to spectacular Switzerland to explore life in the shadow of the world’s great summits
THIS PHOTO AND COVER: OUTPOST/DELANO LAVIGNE
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Dave Hazzan
CONTRIBUTORS
DAVE HAZZAN was born and raised in Ottawa, and educated at the University of Victoria and Athabasca University. He has written about Korea and its madness for publications all over the world, especially Groove magazine in Seoul, where he was voted Writer of the Year in 2014. He lives in Ilsan, South Korea, just north of Seoul, where he pursues his four great loves: books, booze, travel and his wife, the photographer Jo Turner. In their time together they’ve eaten locusts in Laos; prayed to Lord Venkateswara in Tirumala, India; passed out at the Tsingtao Beer Festival in Qingdao, China; befriended stray cats from Istanbul to Kathmandu to Kyoto; cursed at border guards in Port Said; discussed Hermann Hesse with Baghdadi poets in Cairo; and begged the saints for enough gas to reach Daly Waters in the Australian Outback. But a few of the places where they’ve either engaged or offended the local population. In this issue of Outpost, Dave reveals the playful, exciting side of Seoul and how Korean attitudes are shifting with the times.
Lena Desmond LENA DESMOND likes to call herself a traveller of the mind and the imagination. After visiting more than 20 countries, climbing every volcano in her path and going longer than 300 hours without a shower, she’s learned she’ll do just about anything when travelling—and almost anything to keep travelling. The great gift from going abroad is connection, she says. As the ancient Maori proverb goes: What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, it is the people, it is the people! This is why Lena tells stories. She believes that the sharing of great moments allows us to experience the intensely individual human experience and find that we are not alone. Read how a hunt for iguanas in Nicaragua leads her to surprising new friendships, this issue.
LD TRIP?
?
Publisher/Editorial Director MATT ROBINSON matt@outpostmagazine.com Editor DEBORAH SANBORN deborah@outpostmagazine.com Creative/Art Director SERGIO DAVID SPADAVECCHIA david@outpostmagazine.com Senior Editor/Writer & Special Travel Advisor SIMON VAUGHAN simon@outpostmagazine.com Associate/Online Editor DANIEL PUIATTI dan@outpostmagazine.com Gear Editor PAUL AUERBACH Editor-at-Large (Asia) JEFF FUCHS Editor-at-Large (Europe) RYAN MURDOCK Contributors This Issue ROBERT J. BRODEY, LENA DESMOND, DAVE HAZZAN, DELANO LAVIGNE, JIMMY MARTINELLO, JOE SANBORN, ANDREW SHEPPARD, JO TURNER Contributing Editors BILL ROBERTS, FINA SCROPPO, EVAN SOLOMON, IAN WRIGHT
Sales Manager GREG DAVIS
greg@outpostmagazine.com Outpost [ISSN: 1203-7125] is published six times a year by Outpost Incorporated at 250 Augusta Ave., Suite 207 Toronto, ON M5T 2L7 Editorial and Business : 416.972.6635 Advertising: 416.972.6527 info@outpostmagazine.com - www.outpostmagazine.com Individual Subscriptions Canada: 1 Year [6 Issues] $20 CDN, 2 years $35 CDN USA: 1 Year [6 Issues] $30 US, 2 years $50 US Intl: 1 Year [6 Issues] $40 US, 2 years $60 US Subscriber Services: 416.972.6635. Although Outpost rarely does, subscriber lists may be made available to fully screened companies or organizations whose products may interest our readers. To be excluded from these mailings email circ@ outpostmagazine.com, or write to the above address. Publications Mail Agreement #0040017920 Postmaster send address changes & undeliverable copies to above address. We acknowledge the financial support of the G vernment of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund (CPF). Copyright 2015 Outpost Incorporated. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Printed in Canada. Outpost is a member of Magazines Canada.
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SKYTRAX K
8/25/2015 6:20:11 PM
»
Story by Robert J. Brodey Photos by Robert J. Brodey, Jimmy Martinello and Delano Lavigne
In the Shadow of Titans
the Matterhorn and Eiger PART MOUNTAIN, PART LEGEND, WHERE UNPREDICTABILITY IS THE ONLY CERTAINTY. TEAM OUTPOST HEADS TO THE SPECTACULAR SWISS ALPS TO ADVENTURE IN THE LAND OF THE WORLD’S GREAT SUMMITS
W
hen the first humans arrived in the Mattertal Valley, in the heart of the canton Valais, they must have gasped and taken a giant step back as they gazed up in awe at the hulking, pyramid-shaped Matterhorn. Standing before its massive north face, an unbroken wall of rock and ice 1,200 metres high from floor to ceiling, would have been like coming face to face with some sort of ominous god—to be respected and most definitely feared. That rock face would remain in the realm of the immortals for all time. Well, until the first climbing parties arrived in the 1920s, believing they could climb the north face and live to tell. • • • The train platform in Zurich bustles with awaiting passengers, as a sleek locomotive pulls into the station precisely on time. Our newly assembled team barely has time to make introductions before jumping onto the soon-departing train that will take us south to the town of Zermatt at the foot of the Matterhorn. Our mission is simple: to trek and trail run around the Swiss Alps in search of the most spectacular views, while diving into local culture and alpine lore as we go.
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OUTPOST/JIMMY MARTINELLO
» SUNSET OVER LAKE STELLISEE, WITH THE MATTERHORN IN THE BACKGROUND
s
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OUTPOST/ROBERT BRODEY OUTPOST/DELANO LAVIGNE
» THE OMNISCIENT-LIKE MATTERHORN, WATCHING OVER ZERMATT » ZERMATT MARKS THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST ASCENT OF THE MATTERHORN IN 1865
“
There’s something thrilling about having read about this region in such detail and then, like a pop-up book, these legendary peaks, saw-like ridges, and famous alpine towns suddenly come to life
„ »
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OUTPOST/JIMMY MARTINELLO
The trip, in fact, coincides with some big climbing history: the 150th anniversary of the first successful ascent of the Matterhorn (via the Hörnli ridge). In preparation, I’ve been obsessively reading classics written by the great alpinists of the 1930s to the 1960s, which has me thinking about what makes climbers tick, and the chasm that sometimes exists between this high altitude tribe and those who stay below judging their motivations. Fortunately, I have some brains to pick: two of my three travel companions—Jimmy Martinello and Delano Lavigne—are seasoned climbers. Neither have been to Europe before, so this trip is a mountaineer’s pilgrimage. The train glides smoothly over rivers and rolling hills before passing through what feels like a gateway to the high Alps. The team stares out the window, mesmerized by the snowcapped summits. For me, there’s something thrilling about having read about this region in such detail and then, like a pop-up book, these legendary peaks, saw-like ridges, and famous alpine towns suddenly come to life. In time, the train slows as it approaches downtown Zermatt, year-round population sub-six thousand. With bags strung off us like ornaments on a Christmas tree, we stagger off the train and exit the station. Despite Zermatt’s car-free status—the town has banned all combustion engine-powered vehicles (except for emergency service) to curtail pollution and preserve the mountain views—electric taxis dart through the narrow streets, ferrying tourists to and from hotels. It takes all of 30 seconds to understand why this town has become one of the main outdoor centres in the Alps for hiking, climbing and skiing. Cable cars and chairlifts abound, strung up the mountains in all directions, carrying skiers in the winter, and hikers and sightseers in the summer. The highest cable car reaches the Klein Matterhorn (at 3,820 metres), a lift station that has a clear view south into neighbouring Italy. The Alps themselves stretch for 1,200 kilometres across eight countries, with its tallest peaks standing well beyond 4,000 metres. Out of the 128 “four-thousanders” in Western Europe, a staggering 38 surround Zermatt. With so many big mountains, it’s no wonder the area holds a special place in the history of climbing: in the early years of alpinism, before Europeans set off around the globe to climb the world’s tallest peaks, these were the summits mountaineers measured themselves against. With daylight waning, we walk the cobblestone streets of Zermatt packed with tourists. We choose a restaurant perched above the Matter Vispa River, not for its menu but rather the unobstructed view of the iconic Matterhorn. Arguably the most recognizable summit in the world, its silhouette has been immortalized in countless graphics, selling everything from watches to chocolates. But don’t let its chiselled good looks fool you—this is a mountain that has taken more than 500 lives. The human traffic fl ws back and forth, and I marvel that so many people have come here to partake in its mountainous splendour. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, given that 120 to 170 million people fl ck to alpine regions worldwide each year, whether it’s to hike, bike, climb, ski, camp, kayak or just breathe the fresh air. Yet our love affair with mountains doesn’t reach back to time immemorial. Before the Enlightenment (1650s-1780s) people crossed the mountains only when they had to, for trade or pilgrimage. But during the Age of Reason, which emphasized logic and individualism, poets like Byron and philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau (who was actually Swiss born and raised) put a positive spin on the outdoors and nature.
» TEAM OUTPOST SALUTES THE MATTERHORN www.outpostmagazine.com
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2015 • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER
8/24/2015 5:23:30 PM
ÅLAND ARCHIPELAGO THE
Ryan Murdock travels to the blue Baltic Sea to explore a little known land where the sun sits high
I
t’s governed by Finland but its people speak Swedish. It has its own flag, stamps and parliament, and a special trading arrangement with the EU. And it’s halfway between Finland and Sweden, smack in the middle of where the Baltic Sea meets the Gulf of Bothnia. But it isn’t really a part of either country. Some 90 percent of residents live on its large main island, which is the site of the capital town of Mariehamn. But this strange
little territory consists of around 300 habitable islands and some 6,500 rocks and skerries. There’s plenty of room for adventure here because only around 80 of them are inhabited. Welcome to the Åland Islands. The sun barely sets in summer this far north. The sky glows soft luminous pearl until well after 11 o’clock. And it only bows its head for a moment before setting the sky alight again at around 3 a.m.
Story by Ryan Murdock - Photos by Tomoko Goto
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»
» KOBBA KLINTAR, THE OLD PILOT’S STATION AND BEACON
» THE LIFE OF ÅLAND IS LINKED TO THE SEA
» THE PERFECT PLACE FOR A DESERTED ISLAND PICNIC
My wife Tomoko and I arrived by overnight boat from Helsinki at 4:20 a.m. No one else got off, and the big Viking Line ferry turned around and immediately sailed away. Everything was locked up for the night, but I had arranged for a rental car to be left at the harbour. I stopped by the shipping agent’s desk to ask for the keys. I found them in an envelope, with a cheerful handwritten welcome on Post-it notes. There was a blank contract all filled out, with a space for my signature and a note that said, “Just pay for the car when you drop it off.” The islands are that kind of place. We spent the long day wandering around by car on the main island, and on all the others we could reach by bridge. I tried on chainmail armour at Kastelholm Castle, former seat of power in the independent Åland Islands, and later a summer hunting lodge of the Swedish king. And we paced the walls of the ruined sea fortress of Bomarsund, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER • 2015
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which spoke to another 1800s’ phase of this archipelago’s history, when it was briefly controlled by Russia. And then we climbed the hill to the highest point above the crumbling walls. Tomoko wandered around taking photos, while I found a quiet rock to sit and look out over a vast stretch of this forgotten island chain, and so much calm open water. I wondered what it would be like to spend a winter here, in snow and icebound isolation. Or to spend a summer in a cottage or on a boat, just exploring different islands, wandering at will, maybe writing a book. The small granite islands with their trees and summer homes reminded me of the St. Lawrence River and the Thousand Islands in Ontario where I grew up. The sound of water slapping the side of a boat. And the gentle breeze in the trees: first distant, then here, then past. We finished our day of wandering at Stallhagen, Åland’s only brewery. I sipped
a craft beer made from roasted pumpkin, while Tomoko drank a honey ale, and we chatted with the girl behind the bar. “What brings you to Åland?” she asked. “We were in Helsinki,” I replied. “We came on the Viking Line, on our way to Stockholm.” “But how did you know it?” she said. “No one knows about Åland. Sometimes people who sail from Finland to Sweden are even surprised to find it here.” “It’s a beautiful place,” I said. “We don’t want to leave.” “I was born and raised here,” she said. “And I haven’t got tired of it yet.” She wasn’t the only young person who would voice this sentiment to me. The life of Åland is linked to the sea, whether that meant tall-ship sailors and 18th-century trade, or today’s cottage owners with their blissful isolation. And so we decided to rent a 14-foot boat the next day so we could feel the sea spray on our faces, and just to get lost in its channels and bays. www.outpostmagazine.com
8/25/2015 6:28:17 PM
Who (Didn’t)
Let the Iguanas Out? Nicaraguans have developed a taste for the world’s fastest lizard and one traveller goes on the hunt to find out why
ISTOCKPHOTO/YARYGIN
sland
Story and Photos by Lena Desmond
“Do you think the dogs will kill it? ” “Do you think Jorge will stab it through the skull? ” “Maybe Juan will get it with his slingshot.” “Or maybe Humberto will cut its head off.” “Do you think we’ll have to eat it? ” “Someone said it tastes like rabbit.” “I heard it tastes like chicken.” “If they ask you to kill it, will you? ” “I don’t know. Will you? ”
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M
ara and I, two cheating vegetarians, pondered the iguana’s fate and reconciled our own guilt as little Juan skipped merrily ahead, his slingshot laced around his neck for safekeeping. Jorge waved his machete in the air, cutting down weeds that didn’t need cutting, and Fran walked beside Anderson, who sipped water from a Javex bottle that was bigger than his head. Old man Humberto forged the path, moving faster than all six of us younger ones. He wore a gummy smile and crow’s feet that ran some 70-odd years deep. Here we were not salmon fishing in Yemen but iguana hunting on Nicaragua’s Ometepe Island. My pledge to ahimsa would have to wait.
8/24/2015 2:48:04 PM
“
Out of the midst of the beautiful Lake Nicaragua spring two magnificent pyramids, clad in the softest and richest green ... whose summits pierce the billowy clouds
„
»
»
» OMETEPE’S VOLCAN CONCEPCIÓN REMAINS EXACTLY AS MARK TWAIN DESCRIBED IN 1866
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SIN CITY
ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/SEAN PAVONE
STORY BY DAVE HAZZAN, PHOTOS BY JO TURNER
» THE MIGHTY HAN RIVER DIVIDES SEOUL INTO GLITZIER, NEWER GANGNAM AND OLDER, GRITTIER GANGBUK
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8/25/2015 6:52:19 PM
Y
ALL WORK, NO PLAY ONCE MADE THE KOREAN CAPITAL A SOBER AND SOMBER CITY. BUT THE DICTATORS ARE GONE, THE ECONOMY BOOMING, AND THE CULTURE AND THE NIGHTLIFE EXPLODING. FROM GAMING TO GWANGJANG, PUNK ROCK TO KIMCHI, ONE LONGTIME EXPAT HITS THE TOWN TO BARE IT ALL
Seoul
Central Plaza. A ver y hot and humid Sunday in June. Twenty-thousand LGBT partiers and their friends are having a wild time at the city’s 16th annual Korean Queer Culture Festival and Pride Parade. There are cans of cold beer for everyone, cocktail stands preparing the most exotic beverages, chilli dogs and bratwursts for the hungry.
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People lie on the grass, snuggle and kiss, drink and watch a succession of drag shows, all-lesbian choirs, and the maddest dance routines this side of Copacabana. All around the cordoned-off plaza are fundamentalist Christian protesters, denouncing everyone inside for their sin—but never mind them. They are the old Korea, the old Seoul. There is barely anyone under 50 out there, whereas within the square it is all
ages, not to mention all ethnicities and sexualities. At 5:30 in the afternoon the gates of the plaza open, and the parade begins winding its way through one of Asia’s greatest cities. Men and women, in drag and otherwise, dance on floats to the latest K-pop hits, as well as Lady Gaga, Pharrell and Daft Punk. Every so often the parade is met with more fundamentalist protesters, but they aren’t jeered or yelled at, they are cheered.
8/24/2015 3:03:30 PM
» THESE PHOTOS: 2015 PRIDE PARTICIPANTS REVEL IN COOL, MODERN-DAY SEOUL
There is a blanket feeling of “You can’t bring me down!” It is a feeling of exuberant joy, one that would have been considered wrong in the past, and not just because it celebrates queerness. Such glee was wrong for its own sake. Life is hard, Koreans once said. Life is serious. Life is not to be frittered away enjoying yourself. Those days are dead and buried, next to most of South Korea’s long-forgotten dictators. Koreans still work hard, there is no doubt of that—office workers routinely spend 14 hours a day in their cubicles. But this is not a story about how Koreans work. This is a story about how Koreans play. And Seoul is Play City. • • • Located in the centre of Seoul, Gwangjang Market was founded in 1905, during the last gasps and incarnations of the Joseon Dynasty, Korea’s final kingdom that had ruled for more than five centuries. In 1910 the country was annexed by the Japanese, resulting in 35 years of savage foreign occupation. When Japan lost the Second World War, the peninsula was split between the Soviet-occupied North and the American-occupied South. In 1950, the North (soon to be backed by Communist China) invaded the South, precipitating the infamous
» THE PARADE THROUGH CENTRAL SEOUL, SPREADING THE LOVE!
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER • 2015
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U.N.-sanctioned Korean War, a threeyear conflict that ended in an official stalemate at the 38th parallel, where the peninsula remains divided today. A series of military dictators in South Korea swept away the impoverished old Korea and built the new, prosperous one; but they did it by pointing guns—sometimes literally—to the backs of people’s heads. Democracy finally came with a popular uprising in 1987—a de facto revolution—and that’s when Koreans slowly, and then quickly, learned how to enjoy themselves. Gwangjang market is a wondrous hustle and bustle. Two stories high in most sections, it is a spider-web of long alleys where you can buy everything, from offbeat second-hand clothes to ginseng to material for hanbok, the traditional Korean dress still worn at weddings and other special events. Where we entered it was miles of bolts of fabric, being fondled and appreciated by dozens of Indonesian buyers in long dresses and hijabs. The five of us pushed our way through the crowd: Lauren Andrews, 32, the most hilarious Newfoundlander to ever wear cat’s-eye glasses, bright orange hair and a polka-dot dress; Terri Easter, 23, transplanted a year ago from Tennessee, who believes yoga pants are a religion,
beer is a vitamin, and the purpose of life is to squeeze the maximum fun out of it; Jessica Tate, 27, her legs still smarting from fresh tattoos down both thighs, a fierce look in her brown eyes, her Alabama drawl like honey straight from the comb; Jo Turner, 34, the most beautiful and talented photographer to ever leave New Zealand for the Hermit Kingdom (and my wife); and myself, Dave Hazzan, 39, from Ottawa, 13 years in and around Seoul as a teacher, writer and general bon vivant, even if some of those times have been a little too “bon” for everyone’s taste. Through the bolts of fabric and Indonesian buyers we snaked, working to find the core of Gwangjang Market— and when we found it, it was exotic pandemonium. There are hundreds of food stalls in the covered market, and on any given day there are tens of thousands of people looking for a nibble and a drink. The stalls were mostly manned by older women in aprons with their hair tied up, sometimes under plastic caps. Behind glass they displayed their offerings: tteokbokki, small cylindrical rice cakes covered in fiery hot sauce; soondae, pig’s intestines stuffed with glass noodles and served with sliced liver; » OUR AUTHOR’S FELLOW GADABOUT WITH HER FRESH TATTOO
www.outpostmagazine.com
8/24/2015 3:05:56 PM
»
» A PERFORMER AT SEOUL PRIDE. DESPITE CHRISTIAN COUNTER-PROTESTS, IT WENT OFF BEAUTIFULLY AND TO MOST PEOPLE’S DELIGHT!
www.outpostmagazine.com
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2015 • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER
8/24/2015 3:07:56 PM
Spectacular Places, Fascinating Cultures, Thrilling Adventures… Fantastic Stories to Tell!
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