"World's longest seabed tunnel" completed off Pusan

The Epoch Times has an interesting piece on the 3.7-kilometer seabed tunnel that is to connect Kŏjedo Island and Kadŏkto Island with Pusan and the rest of the Mainland. There isn't an official name yet, apparently, though it is being called the Kŏga Tunnel (가거침매터널, after the first syllables of Kŏjedo and Kadŏkto).

The Korean-language Joongang Ilbo (from which I snagged the above image) has a neat graphic on how it was put together. I wonder if this technology could be used for a future tunnel connecting Japan's Kyushu Island and Korea's Kyŏngsang region beneath the Korea Strait, one that is getting a second look.

Thoughts on the KTX

As a postmortem to my recent trip to Pusan, here are some thoughts. 

1. Don't wait until the last minute on the last day of a weekend or holiday to buy a KTX ticket (or any other railway service) for a train headed back to Seoul.

2. If you do wait until the last minute, be prepared for the inevitability that they will tell you Maejin! (sold out). Anticipating this, go to a ticket counter staffed by a person of a different gender than yourself and ask with puppy dog eyes* if there isn't some way you can get back home. Look as desperate as possible (emphasis: desperate, not desperado, which will backfire). This can get the person not your gender to head to the backroom to get that one ticket that was cancelled and that they've been holding just for the right case**.

3. Avoid getting a seat facing backward (half the seat on the KTX face backward so that they won't have to turn the half-kilometer-long trains around, which would have required knocking down a lot of buildings in both downtown Seoul and downtown Pusan). In a few people susceptible to motion sickness, the backward-facing seats can trigger queasiness.

4. Right now the two-hour-and-fifty-minute ride from Seoul to Pusan or back is perfect for watching an entire movie on DVD, giving you enough time to settle in to your seat and also allow time for potty breaks. Once the Taegu-to-Pusan leg of the KTX is finally completed, allowing the breakneck 300-kph from Seoul to Taegu to continue all the way to the Korea Strait, travel time will be reduced enough that your movie options will be limited to Disney flicks and sequels to action films.

5. Each car on the train has a monitor in the middle which will tell you the train's speed when it's over at 250 kph. When it hits 300 kph, you will be tempted to look out the window and remark how it doesn't really look like you're going that fast, after which you will try to fixate on certain points and use some form of one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi to verify or refute the speed appearing on the monitor. This is a good way to get very dizzy. Instead, bring a portable GPS device and press it against the window to verify your velocity.

*If you've never utilized puppy dog eyes to get something you want, practice in the mirror first. If rather than looking endearingly desperate, you look you are heavily medicated and about to vomit, scrap the puppy dog look in favor of yelling loudly in a foreign language. A properly staged "scene" involving shouting in English has been known to be effective, even if it engenders residual resentment toward whatever nationality your are (American citizens: this is when you wear a Maple Leaf somewhere on your person), but that's the problem of whomever comes after you.

Also, try to avoid using words like "fuck" and "shit," since people with poor English skills might mistake these well-known obscenities as profanity directed at them. Example: you might say, "How could I be so fucking stupid?!" but it may be interpreted as, "Hakeidblo chrintikiho FUCK YOU!" Similarly, "Sometimes my brain is as worthless as shit" can be heard as, "Your country is so full of shit." This will not help you get a ticket.

**True story. Happens a lot.