We have an Outback in Suncheon (shut up) and it looks like it's again the site of a little dispute. I don't know many of the details, but from what I've heard the parking lot around the restaurant is owned by another person or group, and they're prone to bouts of displeasure. Last year they erected a huge tent that stretched nearly the whole lot and was occupied by a few florists as a way to keep customers out. Now, as you can see, there is cement around the lot with objects like stakes and steel rods sticking up so as to prevent anyone from parking. There is still space under the restaurant, but the lot is inaccessible.
Pardon the quality of the cellphone pics.
6 comments:
Another parking lot war, here:
http://www.expatkorea.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=13707
Someone in Sunchŏn hates Australians.
My first inkling that things are a bit different here was after I arrived in town and pulled into a very large and vacant restaurant parking lot to get my bearings while discovering the city on my brand-new Lespo bicycle. I had barely put my kickstand down and reached for my very nice and free city map before this old man rushed out from a side door spitting and screaming at me to get off the property. It was beyond intense as I had no idea why he would be so upset in the first place, but later I found out that some people really take their parking lots very seriously even when they are empty and it is very early in the morning. Yet, it wasn’t like I was in a car and taking up one of the few parking spaces in this country. I wonder if this genius ever realized that he might be losing prospective diners due to his anti-social shenanigans? I’ve gone by this nice looking restaurant many times since I first crossed its path and probably would have eaten there at least once in passing, but the rude treatment I was subjected to has kept me out of its front doors cost them at least one hagwon afterhours get together, if not more.
John, I had a similar experience back in Canada of all places. Screaming bloody murder to get off his (empty) parking lot. Like you, all I had done was stop long enough to get my bearings in a new neighbourhood I had just moved to.
From that day on, every time I passed by I ranf my bike bell and flipped the restaurant the bird; so, about twice a day.
Hehehe, the owner caught up with me a few months later in a convenience store on the other side of his parking lot. Screaming, spittle flying, demanding to know why he sees me flip the bird every time I go by his place. "You don't remember a day a couple months back, screaming and threatening me to get out of your empty parking lot?" (he stops short to think about it... he connects the dots and looks kinda sheepish) "That's right, you were being a complete cock, just like you are right now. So I flip you the bird and tell everyone I know exactly the kind of guy you are. And believe me, with my position at the university, I know A LOT of people."
I'd like to claim credit for helping close the guy down a year later, but I'm not that arrogant to believe I have that much power through my networks, extensive through they were.
We have a similar situation in Dongducheon at this very moment. Instead of coming to some sort of mutually beneficial agreement, these folks act like little children.
ROK Hound, where in Canada?
My time in Hawaii makes me think it's a function of scarcity far more than a characteristic of Korea (I remember when Pundang had no such antics, which made it a joy to travel there).
The day before Brian posted this, I was helping a classmate jump start her engine after our evening cram session. She had parked her car on a busy street and left the lights on, and her old battery died.
Since I didn't want to maneuver my car to a position facing hers, which would have required me to go into oncoming traffic on a busy street, I decided to move her car, which was on an incline by putting it in neutral and turning down a nearby side street.
The car went smoothly down the side street and parked neatly in front of someone's house. No sooner had we both gotten out of the car when someone came running out of the house yelling at us not to park there, to move our car, that students aren't supposed to park here it's only for residents, blah, blah, blah.
I couldn't have told him off, reminding him that it's a public street, but we just politely told him we would be on our way soon. He growled and went inside. Maybe one day he'll find some of that Aloha Spirit we are told so much about.
Parking is a territorial process in crowded places like Seoul, and it involves thousands of little unspoken truces. I could write pages and pages of parking mishaps involving hot-headed neighbors verbally attacking me or other neighbors that would never have happened in wide-open Orange County.
I'm lucky now that my apartment complex of 200 units in Seoul has only 198 cars.
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