Hiking in the mountains

Leaves at Bukhansan [Enlarge]

The weather's growing cooler, and the trees in Seoul are a beautiful autumn-brown. We decided to take a much-needed trip out of the city to one of the nearby mountainous national parks. Korea is a very hilly country. From almost anywhere in Seoul you can see the tree-clad slopes of one mountain or other. The shortage of flat ground explains (in part) the food shortages in the North and the overcrowding in the South: much of the land is unfarmable and unlivable-on.

Early Sunday morning we boarded a subway train heading north from downtown Seoul towards Dobongsan station on line number one. The train was packed, just like rush hour on a weekday morning—but instead of being surrounded by be-suited commuters, either slumbering or watching the telly on their mobile phones, our travelling companions were all dressed in full hiking kit. Koreans take some things very seriously, and apparel is one such thing. It felt like we were going to a Gore-Tex convention.

These were the same sunlight-starved businessmen we teach every day, and their perm-headed wives. But this was them in Weekend Mode. Korean culture is all about social acceptability. You must go to the right university, get married at the right age to a person from the right family, have a child or two (no more), be promoted and attain as high a salary as your talent permits. Then, with the security of the next generation ensured, you must take up golf or hiking for your health so that you won't become a burden on the state. So it is easy to see why having the right hiking clothes is of vital importance. From the sun visors, to the neon-patterned body warmers, knee-length socks and leather boots, these Koreans were not just going hiking, but hiking for Korea, and being seen to do so.

Going for a quiet walk in the country [Enlarge]

There was no mistaking when we had arrived at our destination station, about an hour out of the city centre. As the doors opened a river of hikers gushed out of the train, and down the stairs in a fluid but orderly mass. As we looked over the barrier we could see this river had joined the one from the previous train a few minutes earlier, and was flowing across the road and into the foothills of the national park. Having taken some photos, we joined a tributary of the river and started walking.

The path from the entrance to the national park into the mountains proper was lined by restaurants and shopportunities. This, seemingly, was the place to buy your hiking gear, as well as essential provisions. As we shuffled forwards in the queue we were able to look at some of the bargains on offer. Most intriguing was the amount of alcohol on sale. The hiking beverage of choice is, it seems, makgeolli (rice wine). Thousands of bottles of the stuff were being bought, presumably for consumption on the summit. The perennial Korean favourite, soju (a bit like vodka) was also popular.

Seoul suburbs from Bukhansan [Enlarge]

Is there anywhere else in the world where you have to queue to go for a stroll in the country? Just outside Seoul in the autumn you do! Actually to be fair it's not like this every weekend—we had, it seemed, picked the busiest weekend of the year, when the leaves were at their best and the weather perfect. As we filed into the park we were filmed by Korean TV news who seemed particularly interested in the strangely-dressed foreigners (us) who had joined the locals to partake of the motherland's natural beauty. We managed to find a less-busy path branching off the main one and took it—passing wonderful temples and mountain streams on the way to a summit of sorts. At the top we ate our picnic lunch sitting on the only free square metre of mountain we could find, with a great view over the northern Seoul suburbs. It was all very friendly, with a real party atmosphere. We were overtaken by a lot of very old Koreans, who had clearly been up and down this mountain more than a few times. And Glenn was given a very tasty apple by a Korean lady—the Asian women still love him!

Life here provides its own entertainments. The culture is fascinating. The city is vibrant. We wouldn't want to settle here long term, but as a place to spend a year it's perfect. The simplest activities give rise whole new perspectives, and a surprise is waiting around every corner.

Settled in Seoul

Dolsot bibimbap [Photo by abex]

We've been struggling for blog material since we stopped travelling and started our year of working as English teachers. So we thought we'd answer a few questions that people have emailed us or asked in comments about what general life is like here in Seoul. We didn't realise that people were interested in the mundane stuff, but thinking back, we had no idea how the Koreans lived before we came so it's no wonder that folks want some details.

Let's start with the food. Not much is known about Korean cuisine outside Korea. Western food here is expensive and so we mostly stick to the local food, which is easy, since it is really good. On our initial training course on How to Become an English Teacher we were introduced to Dolsot Bibimbap and found it to be very tasty. Bibimbap is mostly rice, served with a mixture of raw and sauteed vegetables, such as julienned cucumber, mu (daikon), mushrooms, doraji (bellflower root), laver, spinach, soybean sprouts, and gosari (bracken fern stems). You dollop in a spoon or two of spicy red pepper paste and stir well. Dolsot Bibimbap is served in a blisteringly hot stone bowl. A raw egg is added just before serving, and it quickly cooks in the hot bowl. The rice carries on cooking on the sesame oil-coated sides of the bowl, resulting in yummy crunchy bits.

There's loads of other great foods on offer in Seoul besides bibimbap, but it can be difficult to know what you're getting—not many of the authentic places have an English menu. So we don't always know exactly what we're going to be eating, but so far it's all been good! We have grown to absolutely love Kimchi (super-spicy fermented cabbage), named by US Health magazine as one of the healthiest foods in the world. It comes with every meal and forms part of many main dishes such as Kimchi jjigae (Kimchi stew), and even as a pizza topping. We haven't found ourselves challenged to eat a plate of grubs or anything nasty (although silk worm larvae are readily available as a handy snack from street stalls).

We haven't tried dog yet either. That Koreans eat dog is well known, and they are sometimes a bit embarrassed by it, knowing as they do that westerners find it a bit weird. It's not actually a popular dish, especially amongst women and younger people. Those who do eat it go to great lengths to point out that (of course) it's not people's well loved pets that get butchered. The dogs are specially bred on farms. Which doesn't make it any different from eating cows or pigs. Actually, the Koreans think we're strange for eating lamb—to them it smells unpalatable. We'll probably try dog meat soup before we leave.

The best thing about Korean restaurants are that they're really, really cheap. A very filling lunch costs KRW 5,000 (GBP 2.67 / USD 5.32), including all the kimchi you can eat. It's cheaper than eating in the apartment. In fact when you talk to Koreans you soon discover that very few of them do any cooking at all!

Our plan to earn back what we've spent so far is going well, but to achieve this we're having to be very careful with money. Every won spent is one more we have to earn back so we've been trying to limit our spending to necessities like food and transport. Transport here is good and cheap. A journey on the bus or subway is KRW 900 (GBP 0.48 / USD 0.96), a little more if you go all the way across town, or beyond the city limits. That's a third the price of the London Tube with an oyster card (an eighth the cash price) and half the price of the New York Subway. The subway is incredibly clean, and outside of the morning and evening rush hours, you even get a seat! Buses are more basic, though still pretty clean. They are very fast too, as their drivers are all red-light-running, two-wheel-driving, brake-screeching loonies. Standing up on the buses is a challenge, although it never feels unsafe as the other traffic knows to get out of the way.

The supermarkets improve week on week. When we arrived, HomePlus (a partnership between Samsung and Tesco) stocked a passable Australian cheddar cheese—better than any cheese we'd had on the road. At time of writing they have begun importing real proper Scottish cheddar of a brand we'd buy at home! Result! We can also get Kellogg's breakfast cereals, and fresh milk is very popular and widely available. Proper teabags are no problem either. Teabags and fresh milk: for Brits abroad nothing else really matters.

So, we work, eat and sleep—surely that's not all? Of course not. We don't have a TV—it just didn't seem worth buying one, as the English language channels here are a bit rubbish. We manage to catch the odd TV show online, or watch DVDs bought cheaply from the dodgy man in the subway tunnel. Every month we shell out KRW 41,800 for broadband internet (GBP 22.35 / USD 44.48). This is a bit steep, but it is very fast and we use it a lot, for everything. The other bills are very cheap though: the total for electricity, gas, water and two cellphones is about KRW 70,000 per month (GBP 37.45 / USD 74.76)

City Hall, Seoul [Enlarge]

We also invested in five months of Korean classes which were well worth the money. We are beyond beginner level now, though we lack the necessary vocabulary to communicate much more than asking the price in shops and giving taxi drivers directions. It's enough, just about! We will never master the many Korean levels of politeness though (there are at least seven). Luckily, as westerners, expectations of us when it comes to appropriately respectful speech are very low.

There's loads of free or very cheap entertainment available in Seoul if you look for it. There are some great places to just wander about. Downtown in Seoul (a twenty-five minute walk from our apartment) we can stroll along the recently re-developed Cheonggyecheon (Cheonggye Stream), surrounded by courting couples and carefully selected and maintained wildlife. We are able (almost) to forget that we're in the middle of a bustling multinational city. Also downtown are the trendy, touristy areas of Myongdong and Insadong. Even if you're not interested in shopping for designer labels or tourist souvenirs, you can have fun here people watching. Street stalls sell intriguing snacks which change with the seasons. We are now in prime roast chestnut time, and it seems you can get (whole) flattened dried squid all year round. It's chewy but actually surprisingly good.

N Seoul Tower from Haebangchon [Enlarge]

Even closer to home is Namsan (South Mountain), a big hill stuck right in the centre of Seoul—with a predictably commanding view over the city. A local yellow bus, the number 02, will take you to the summit for just 500 won, or you can join the locals and walk up for free. On a clear day, we're told, it's worth shelling out an extra 7,000 won when you get to the top to go up the N Seoul Tower, originally a TV mast but now a tourist attraction on the summit of Namsan. From the observation deck it is alleged that you can see the West Sea (what we call the Yellow Sea), and Kaesong in North Korea. We've been to the top of Namsan but haven't been up the tower yet. We're waiting for perfect weather.

Living and teaching in Seoul

Namdaemun (Great South Gate) [Enlarge]

Okay, recap: we've paused on our RTW odyssey to have a break from the tourist thing and to recharge our bank account. We've done the maths and as long as we're careful and save most of what we earn this year in our jobs as English conversation teachers, we can re-coup everything we've spent on the trip so far plus a little more!

So what have we been doing since we arrived in Seoul? Here's an update.

7–24 June: Just working!

We were told that our first month would be quiet. Newbies always start off with just a few classes to teach, so that they are not overloaded and also to to see if they're any good. But actually, the company was quite busy and so we soon picked up on the number of lessons we were teaching. We need to teach as much as possible because we get paid by the class.

Teaching took some getting used to, but already we're getting into the swing of it. The job is quite good fun and involves absolutely no stress. We mainly teach business people and professionals, but there are a few students and housewives, and Glenn's office has loads of kids too. Yes, we're at different offices but they're only about a seven-minute walk apart. Anyway it would be a bit weird working together.

The group size ranges from individuals up to classes of ten to twelve. The hours are tiring: our busiest times are 06:45 to 09:00 and 18:45 to 21:00, and then we have a liberal sprinkling of work during the day. The hours are certainly having the desired effect of stopping us spending any money!

You may remember Glenn saying that one of the reasons why we're doing this job is so that he can get over his fear of public speaking. Well, not only has he got over it, but he has given a week-long presentation skills course to Koreans (and they and he loved it). We'll call that a success.

25 June–13 July—Korean lessons and a birthday.

In the past we always tried to learn some of the language before we visited a country, even if it was just how to say 'thank you'. That went out of the window on our round-the-world trip because we didn't know where we would be going in advance and also because if we'd tried, our heads would have exploded.

But we're planning to be in Korea until 7 June 2008 and that's a long time to spend looking puzzled and apologetic. So we've started taking Korean lessons, twice a week for ninety minutes a time. Because we're studying in our own language school we get the lessons at cost (i.e. we only have to pay the instructor's fee) and we're taking the class with two of our colleagues. It's costing us each KRW 14,000 (GBP 7.45 / USD 15.18) per week.

Korean is very different from most of the languages we've learned before, but the structure is similar to Japanese, which we did a beginners' course in a few years ago. So we're not starting from absolute zero. We've got the hang of the Hangul alphabet, which is much easier than it looks. It is actually a syllabary, not an alphabet—each character is one syllable. We can now have a basic conversation in Korean in a shop or restaurant, or give directions to a taxi driver, so we're pleased.

Korean language lessons have been one break from the pattern of teaching and sleeping. Another was Isla's thirtieth birthday. We celebrated with a meal in a Mexican Restaurant called Casa Loca in the Yeouido area of Seoul. The meal was OK (Seoul is not great for cuisine unfortunately), but the margaritas were excellent! So now we're both in our thirties. Yuck.

14–30 July: bank holidays and apartment hunting.

Korea has a lot of bank holidays. They make up for the fact that people here get virtually no time off work otherwise. We had an enforced rest day on July 17, Constitution Day. Unfortunately it was also an income-free day, but it was welcome nonetheless.

Our employer puts new teachers up in a company apartment for the first three months, so by the end of July it was time to start looking for our own place. Our goal was to find somewhere modern (or at least clean), close to work, and cheap enough that the company's accommodation allowance would pay for the rent and the bills. We soon found that 'modern' and 'close to work' and 'cheap' were mutually exclusive concepts. The only place in central Seoul where we found anywhere meeting our aims was in the foreigners' ghetto: Haebangchon—known to its residents as 'The Chon'.

The Chon is not a bad area, it's just that it's not very Korean. The US 8th Army base is nearby so a kind of mini-America grew up there. As the army has begun to pull out, so they have been replaced by language teachers and foreign company workers. Koreans don't particularly want to live here (although plenty of them do), and there is a high resident turnover, so the rent is low. On the plus side the real estate agents speak some (if only a little) English, and are used to dealing with Westerners who want to pay a monthly rent instead of using the more common Korean jeonse system. Under this system the tenant deposits a huge sum of money with the landlord (around half the property's value), who then invests it and takes the income in lieu of rent. At the end of the contract the original deposit is returned. Why Koreans don't just use their huge lump sum as a deposit against buying their own place we don't fully understand.

Our new apartment [Enlarge]

Isla's schedule was lighter than Glenn's in July so she went and looked at half a dozen places of varying styles and prices, and found one particular agent with a selection of the right kind of thing. We then went back together the following day and viewed a small (but very spacious for Seoul), newly constructed, one bedroom apartment. It has a good view at the front and there are no extra management charges. A snip at KRW 500,000 per month (GBP 266 / USD 542). Not bad for the centre of a capital city, and well inside our budget. There are only two drawbacks: it's totally unfurnished, and it's at the top of an infeasibly steep hill. Still, it was what we were looking for so we grabbed it while we could. More photos are here.

You couldn't make it up

We've been doing our best this summer to keep up to date with the news from back home. We note that it's been a bit rainy in Blighty. Oh, and apparently there's a new prime minister. Gordon Brown is of course unelected, as America's George Bush was in 2000. We're confident that this minor detail will not stop our country's continuing campaigns to export democracy to other parts of the world though—do as we say, not as we do.

Anyway, we digress. Among all the shenanigans we missed a slightly bizarre story. It would never have come to our attention at all had a British work colleague not mentioned it when he found out that we were from Wiltshire. Now, not a lot usually happens in Wiltshire. At the moment there's a threat from a cloud of smoke following a barn fire, apparently, and changes to the proposed plans for the old Ushers Brewery site in Trowbridge. Last week the M4 motorway got a bit flooded. Wow. So given that nothing of global importance ever happens in Wiltshire, imagine our surprise when our colleague said "That's where the North Korean athletes are going to be staying for the 2012 Olympics!"

What? Huh? Sorry? Must've missed that one! So we googled it and yes, there is some truth to the rumour. Basically Chippenham, our old home town and the second largest town in Wiltshire, decided it would like to be one of the host towns for the preparation period before the 2012 Olympics. Chippenham was never going to attract a big-league sporting nation like the US or Russia. But undeterred, the 2012 committee (or whoever) contacted some smaller countries and received a prompt reply from the DPRK! So, assuming they manage to put a deal together and nothing changes in the intervening five years (regime change, reunification, all out war), what can Wiltshire do to make the athletes' stay more pleasant? Our suggestions are presented below, for the benefit of the residents of Chippenham.

Language

In theory, North Koreans speak the same language as their brothers in the South, but in practice there has been a lot of evolution over the past fifty years. Apart from spelling and pronunciation changes, the North's regime has worked tirelessly to rid their language of the Chinese characters which are still occasionally sprinkled in among the Korean ones in the South.

Also, in South Korea, Japanese and English loanwords are everywhere. Opening our (South) Korean–English dictionary at random, we find that the word for 'trampoline' is 'tu-raem-poel-leen'. And 'table' has a pure Korean translation of 'shiktag', but a more common word, especially amongst younger Koreans is 'tae-ee-bul'. And if you want a nice English cup of tea with milk, you will need to ask for a 'mil-kuh-tee' rather than using the Korean words for milk and tea. But in the North, all these loanwords have either been expunged, or were never introduced in the first place.

So, people of Chippenham: if you're considering giving a welcome speech or having any signs made, be very careful to ask for the right kind of Korean translation, or you risk offending your guests with the 'coquettish and decadent' language of the South.

Hospitality

If you need any pointers on hospitality, speak to the residents of Middlesbrough who hosted the North Korean side during the 1966 Football World Cup (US: Soccer) and followed the team up and down the country cheering them on in all their games—football fans from the DPRK were of course not allowed to travel to support their national team. The fate of the players after they returned to the DPRK has been the subject of some speculation. Some sources claim that the team were sent to the gulag on their return, as punishment for indulging in the capitalist pursuit of getting very drunk after their stunning one-nil victory over the Italians. In a (government sanctioned) film released in 2002, the surviving team members vehemently denied the story. In fact, they claimed the opposite is true—they are still hailed as heroes to this day. Whatever the truth, it is worth noting for 2012 that cider is a soft drink in Korea. The differences between their idea of cider and the famous local Wiltshire 'scrumpy' should be pointed out clearly and unambiguously. It's for their own good.

Food and drink

This brings us to the subject of food and drink. You should have no problem at all getting authentic kimchi, mandu and ramyun noodles in the UK. There are Korean supermarkets in many cities, and wholesalers deliver imported Korean products countrywide. Kimchi (very spicy, fermented cabbage) is especially prized. It is reputed to cure bird flu and many other ailments and will no doubt be part of the DPRK's strategy to win Olympic gold. Kimchi is part of every meal in Korea and could easily be incorporated into some traditional British dishes to Koreanise them. Wiltshire pubs could offer kimchi ploughman's lunch, steak and kimchi pie, or bangers and kimchi…

Okay, 2012 is a long way off, but it never hurts to be prepared. The North Koreans were very welcoming to us when we visited their country. Hopefully we'll get the opportunity to reciprocate with some Wiltshire hospitality.

A book recommendation

Please buy The Aquariums of Pyongyang (US: Amazon.com, UK: Amazon.co.uk). No, we haven't signed up for the Amazon affiliate program so we're not getting commission. We just think that everyone should read this book.

We bought it when we arrived in Seoul, to help us when we were trying to reprogram ourselves after our trip to the North. The book's author came from a relatively well-off and trusted family in Pyongyang, but they fell on hard times when the author's grandfather was suspected of being a bit less than 100% supportive of the regime. The author and his entire family were carted off to one of North Korea's gulags, the Yodeok concentration camp (official name: Reeducation Centre No. 15). He was only nine years old. He spent the next ten years there, eating rats on the good days, and nothing on the bad days.

Incidentally, three generations of a 'hostile' family are purged, as that is apparently what is needed to root out the bad blood and prevent it from corrupting the workers' paradise.

His re-education complete, the author was eventually released from the camp. Using the resourcefulness he had developed in the gulag, he managed to escape from North Korea itself and tell his story. His book is a chilling read and it certainly had the desired effect on our own process of re-education. We guarantee that however bad your own problems in life are, they are completely insignificant.