A year in Korea (in one month)

Bbali bbali! [Enlarge]

As we've already mentioned, one of our goals for our year in Seoul was to make as much money as possible to fund the rest of our trip. Things are looking good on this front, but with a month to go we were really flagging. The split shift (working from 06:45 to 11:15 and then from 16:30 to 21:00) was bad enough, but we had also been taking all the overtime we could get in the time in the middle of the day. We were exhausted. Also, we were in danger of spending a year in Korea and not seeing any of the sights apart from a brief trip to Gyeongju. So for our last month here we decided to fix that by cramming everything into one month. This would be Korean-style bbali bbali (quickly quickly) tourism, which seemed appropriate under the circumstances. There was nothing we could do about the split shift, but we could refuse overtime during the middle of the day. Overtime is paid at a higher rate, and we didn't want to lose too much income so we compromised and opted out of mid-day work just three days a week.

Honestly, Seoul is not yet a world-class tourist city. There's not a huge number of must-see sights, which is why most westerners bypass Korea in favour of China or Japan. This is a shame, because there is a lot to see here, it's just not in your face.

Assorted shellfish [Enlarge]

For our first outing we headed out of town to Seoul's closest port city, Incheon. This was our second time here, because we first hit land at Incheon when we arrived into Korea from China on the overnight ferry. At the time however, we hadn't been in a sightseeing frame of mind and we'd simply caught the first possible subway train into Seoul. This time we went with Misun, and had the whole day free. It was Buddha's Birthday, which in Korea means a holiday. We caught the express subway train from Yongsan station, using our Seoul T-Money card, and were surprised to find that the Seoul card is also valid on Incheon's bus network. We bbali bbalied around taking in sights like the fish market where friendly women seemed more interested in posing for our camera than selling their wares, and taking a ride on the viking ship at the fairground just after eating a huge Chinese lunch and an ice cream. Really bad idea.

These ajummas were friendly [Enlarge]

Approximately half way between our two offices is one of Seoul's five royal palaces, Deoksugung. It isn't the biggest palace or the most interesting, but it does offer a cheap escape from the noise of downtown Seoul. For 1,000 won (GBP 0.50 / USD 0.98) you can get some respite from the traffic and crowds.

There's one thing you never escape in Seoul though. Korean middle-aged women. These fearsome creatures are known in Korean as ajummas. The name just means "auntie", but that friendly name hides a formidable secret—these are aunties with attitude. Our students joke "there are three genders in Korea: men, women and ajummas". They have wickedly sharp elbows and wield a shopping trolley as a deadly weapon. They also have the world's most bizarre sense of style. Often an ajumma will be seen wearing a combination of surgical face-mask and huge black UV-proof sun visor pulled down over her face, which together with her standard-issue black perm, must mean that even her own family can't recognise her. To get around this she will differentiate herself from other ajummas with cunning use of mismatched sequin and diamante encrusted clothing in a variety of bright, sometimes luminous hues. Never, never, ever get in the way of an ajumma near the door of a bus or subway carriage. You will be barged, bashed and trampled into the dirt. An ajumma shows no mercy.

We have a theory that ajummas are, in fact, cloned at Seoul National University and are South Korea's response to the nuclear threat from the North. Honestly, if you marched an army of ajummas north from Seoul at 07:00 they'd be drinking soju in Kim Il-sung Square by 14:00 having knee-capped any KPA soldier who tried to stop them.

Deoksugung ceremony [Enlarge]

Ajummas aside, Deoksugung does have one must-see attraction: the changing of the guard ceremony. Forty or so blokes in bright Joseon dynasty uniforms march through the side streets of Seoul and up to the main gate of Deoksugung, with assistants hurriedly shooing the passers-by out of the way on the pavement. Then they parade around, blowing conch shell horns and banging gongs. After a while they march through the gate into the palace grounds, and wait while the commanders do some ceremonial handing over of keys. Then the guards march back out of Deoksugung and disappear back up the street, while Seoul's hungover office workers do their best not to even notice them.

Tangsuyuk and jajjangmyeon seteu [Enlarge]

We've loved the food this year. Korean food is tasty and cheap. The family-run restaurants tend to specialise in a particular style of food however. If you're with someone and can't decide what style to go for, one tip is to try a food court. These are typically found in the basement of office blocks and they consist of a collection of small restaurants around the edge of a large seating area. On a board, near the entrance, is a huge menu. It's organised by restaurant, and you look down the list and place your order and pay at a central till. They give you a numbered ticket. You help yourself to water, napkins, etc, and find a seat, then watch the restaurant you've ordered from for your number to flash up on the laser display. Service is efficient, but basic. You collect your own food and return your tray when you've finished. Many of the supermarkets also have a food court, usually with very realistic-looking, conveniently numbered, plastic models of the dishes. Don't think of a food court back home—bad food which is badly overpriced, badly cooked and badly presented—the Korean version is very different.

Namsan Cable Car [Enlarge]

We couldn't leave Seoul without going up Namsan Tower. It's been as much a part of our daily landscape as Namdaemun was. Perched on top of Namsan (South Mountain), the tower is visible from all over Seoul and is only a few hundred metres from our apartment. After months of waiting we finally achieved a rare combination: enough free time and a clear day without Seoul's usual haze. We decided take the expensive way up to the base of the tower, the cable car from Myeongdong.

We got a great view from the top of the tower. Having been in Seoul for a year, we could spot all the places we knew, and seeing them from above made it possible to put together all the pieces of the city into one big picture. We had a beer on a terrace looking out over downtown Seoul before it was time to go back to work.

Korean musicians [Enlarge]

One of Glenn's colleagues has been learning to play the Janggu—a kind of drum. On our final Saturday in Korea she took part in a concert along with lots of other foreigners. We went along to lend our support, to her and the other groups, which ranged from beginners to advanced levels. There were also some Korean professionals playing (see picture). It was great, but very strange to see so many Westerners dressed in hanbok.

Other places seen in May: Olympic park (good place for a picnic), Seodaemun prison (not really worthwhile to be honest), a traditional tea shop in the country (courtesy of one of Glenn's students), Lotte Department Store (a disturbing experience in so many ways), a long walk along Cheonggyechon (a little strip of nature in Seoul), lots of bus rides to nowhere in particular, lots of new restaurants, a few museums. We feel more cultured and less exhausted, and ready to start our round the world trip again.

Korean War Museums of the world: part 3

Bronze statue [Enlarge]

Although we've been in Seoul for the past twelve months we haven't really done much in the way of tourist attractions, so we resolved to remedy this by doing all the ones we fancy seeing in one go. So for our final month in Seoul we have refused overtime three days a week. Our sightseeing starts today.

You may recall that in April 2007 we visited the DPRK, a strange land more commonly known as North Korea. In Pyongyang we were taken to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum where they told us the story of the Korean war. Then on our way out of the DPRK we stopped off at Dandong on the Chinese border and visited the museum of the War to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea, where China's part in the conflict was documented and exhibited. So today we thought we'd go for the hat trick and check out South Korea's version of events in the much less emotively named War Memorial of Korea.

The three versions of reality are essentially as follows:

• According to North Korea, the US started the war with a completely unprovoked incursion across the 38th parallel. And they have evidence to prove it.
• According to South Korea, the North started the war with a completely unprovoked incursion across the 38th parallel. And they have evidence to prove it.
• According to China, it doesn't matter who started the war—China finished it with a heroic push across the Yalu river to repel the UN forces who were threatening Chinese territory. And yes, they too have evidence to prove it.

So in our third Korean War museum, right next to the main US Army base in the Yongsan district in the heart of Seoul, we played our own little game of spot-the-difference. There was lots of military hardware—some friendly, and some captured from the enemy. There were flags and uniforms, some with bullet holes. There was propaganda, and historical documents, photographs, video footage. All the same so far. Yet of course the story had a completely different spin on it.

In short, the South Korean museum was a lot sparklier, more hi-tech and warmer than the one in Pyongyang (advantages). But it also had noisy school tours, and lacked the stern Rosa Klebb-esque museum guide (disadvantages).

As a museum the War Memorial of Korea is very thorough, and well worth a visit. The entrance fee of 3,000 Won (GBP 1.49 / USD 2.91) is good value. Finding the place is easy, but finding the ticket office is not (even if you can read the Korean signs). It is bizarrely tucked away down a little alleyway outside the museum entrance. The museum has an English language website with all the details you need.

Gate of Exalted Ceremonies

Before [Enlarge]

Namdaemun (Great South Gate), also known as Sungnyemun (Gate of Exalted Ceremonies), is one of the four original gates that protected Seoul during the Joseon Dynasty. It stands at the heart of the modern downtown district and has served as the city's ceremonial gateway since it was built in 1398. It also happens to be our favourite building in Seoul.

Our bus drives past Namdaemun once every morning and twice every evening, so we see it a lot. We don't usually pay much attention to it, but as we hurtled down the hill 'Seoul-style' on the morning of Monday 11th February at 06:15, something was clearly wrong. The streets were full of firetrucks, their flashing lights lighting up the pre-dawn cityscape. As the bus picked its way through the parked trucks, we could see in the darkness that the entire wooden structure on top of the gate had collapsed, blackened beams and ancient tiles were strewn down the sloping sides of the base and onto the road. We couldn't believe it. Our favourite landmark in Seoul had burnt down.

After [Enlarge]

We both had to teach until 08:15, but had some free time after that. As soon as class was finished, we met up at the site of the former National Treasure Number 1. It had basically gone. The entire upper storey was now a pile of rubble on the ground around the base, and little remained of the lower storey. The huge timbers had even caused part of the stone base to collapse as they came down. In places, the ruins were still smoking a little.

A small crowd had started to gather, but at this stage the onlookers were outnumbered by the journalists. As the only foreigners there at that stage, we were hot property for the journos who wanted the foreigner angle. Isla was interviewed by a TV station and Glenn by a news agency reporter with a pencil and notebook. We felt a bit like tourists at a funeral, but we were both really sad about the Koreans' loss. They have so little of their history left in Seoul after the city was flattened in the Korean War, but this was one piece of the old Seoul which was left. We loved it because it was slapped right in the middle of the Seoul financial district, surrounded by modern tower blocks, the traffic flowing around it in a constant stream.

Even as we were watching workers had already begun to build a temporary scaffolding fence, hung with blankets to screen the ruins. By the end of the day they had put up a more permanent screen. Within a week or so, a solid metal wall, almost as high as the gate itself, had hidden the gate completely. This is not going to be a quick restoration—they are talking about four to five years.

Now they guard it [Enlarge]

Of course it turned out to be arson. The guy responsible, a crazy old bastard who had a gripe against the government, was quickly found (he set fire to an old palace a few years ago, apparently). He confessed and is expected to get ten years. Personally, we would have him chained to the gate restoring it single handedly with a toothpick, but luckily for him we're not in charge.

We were left questioning the unbelievable naivety of the Koreans in matters like this. The problem is, they just don't have crime here, certainly not mindless vandalism like this. They seem to have no concept of guarding things. The gate's CCTV was inadequate, and because of the ancient design it had been deemed impossible to install a sprinkler system. The gate was guarded, but only during office hours! The guards had ended their shift and gone home at something like 20:00 on Sunday night, as they did every night. In any other city in the world that is precisely the time when the guards would have been coming on duty!

In the days that followed there was all sorts of strange navel gazing going on in Korea, including resorting to bizarre feng shui arguments about how the original architects had always intended for the gate to burn down eventually: it had been deliberately sited at a point of 'high energy' so that it would act as a fire break for the rest of the city. That may indeed have been their fourteenth-century intention, but it doesn't excuse such fatalism now. There has been a massive backlash and most Koreans now support putting a fence around the thing when it reopens so that nobody can get near it. To us this seems completely ridiculous. The people must be able to enjoy their historical architecture—you can't spoil it for everyone because of a few loonies. The answer is not to lock it away, just guard it properly!

For 49 days candles were kept burning on an altar in front of the wall, but now these too are gone. Namdaemun will be rebuilt, as it has been many times before. And as in previous reconstructions and renovations some of the original timbers will go back into the structure. City planners will take this opportunity to remodel the area. Lessons will, of course, be learned—about security, safety, firefighting, and archaeology. A catalogue of mistakes were made, ranging from ministry officials preventing the firefighters from removing part of the roof, in case they damaged it (!), to government workers throwing away some of the damaged timbers and tiles as waste! Heads will roll, and they should.

All our photos of the gate before and after the fire are here.

A couple of great videos from storycubic are below. The first is a still movie from shortly after the gate was reopened to the public in 2006 (it was closed off in the middle of a traffic island for many decades).

The second video is called "다시 되돌릴 수 있다면" (Dasi doe-dollil su iss-damyeon / If only we could go back in time).

Gyeongsangbuk-do Province

Seonbichon traditional hotel [Enlarge]

Just outside Yeongju, near Misun's grandparents' house is Seonbichon, a traditional folk village, which has been recreated as a living museum. There are a variety of houses, rich and poor. In each house there is a central courtyard which is open to the sky. When you walk through the main door into the courtyard a raised semi-open area faces you—this was used as a living area in the summer. The bedrooms and winter living rooms have small doors opening onto the courtyard. Everything is built on large wooden stilts so that the floors can be heated from underneath by fires.

Seonbichon also doubles as a hotel for tourists and Koreans who fancy seeing what it would have been like to live in an old Korean village, and so this was where we would be staying the first night of the Year of the Rat. Misun had negotiated one of the best rooms in the whole village for us at a bargain price. It was off-season and we nearly had the place to ourselves, but even so, getting it for a third of the normal price was an incredible achievement. So, we would be living as the lord and lady of the manor for a night. We arrived at sunset so we didn't have much time to look around the village. Being February it was bitterly cold anyway. After climbing in through the tiny paper doorway to our room we found ourselves in a small but warm cocoon with a huge Korean-style mattress on the floor and several layers of brand new, soft silk sheets over it. The furniture was made of dark wood with inlaid mother-of-pearl and heavy brass fittings, and a painted screen stood at the end of the room.

Korean breakfast [Enlarge]

In the morning a knock on the door meant that breakfast had arrived. We had been given the choice of a Western breakfast, but we had chosen the Full Korean instead, to our hosts' delight. It was a banquet of kimchi (did you doubt it?), rice, soup, seaweed and various pickled vegetables.

After breakfast we braved the freezing morning to go for a shower in the bathroom, which was in a small shed outside the courtyard. Putting in ensuite bathrooms would be impossible in a place like this.

Misun and her mum arrived at the village and after a look round Sosu Seowon, the Silla (pronounced Shilla) school next door to Seonbichon, we hitched another ride with Misun's mum to Yeongju railway station to catch a train to Gyeongju in the south-eastern corner of Korea. On the train we met up with Tae Eun, Misun's university friend and a history major. She had left Seoul earlier in the day.

Gyeongju was the capital of the Silla empire, one of the ancient Three Kingdoms. It's one of the top tourist destinations in Korea, famous for four main sights:

• Cheomseongdae: an ancient astronomical observatory
• Cheonmachong: an excavated burial tomb
• Seokguram: a giant stone Buddha statue in a cavern in the hillside
• Bulguksa: a Buddhist temple with two famous stone pagodas

The historic sites are well worth a visit; also worth dropping into is Shilla Millennium Park: a brand new historical theme park. We were walking through the sculpture park towards the arena to watch a display of ancient military techniques when we noticed that three westerners and a Korean were listening to Misun and Tae Eun telling us all about Silla history. They turned out to be Norwegian oil prospectors on a business trip who had been caught with nothing to do during the new year holiday. Their Korean minder spoke only a little English (and no Norwegian) and in any case he wasn't from the area, so they were all feeling a bit lost.

Silla warriors [Enlarge]

Misun, who loves to talk to everyone, was happy to act as an impromptu tour guide to three Norwegians, as well as two Brits. They were so grateful they invited us to join them for lunch as a thank you. It seems there is such a thing as a free lunch!

For our third night away from Seoul we took a local bus to the coast and all stayed in a pension on the seafront. It is a Korean tradition to go to the East Sea (which the rest of the world usually calls the Sea of Japan) at Lunar New Year to watch the first sunrise of the year. Misun, ultra-reliable as ever, made sure that we were awake just before dawn, then told us that it was cloudy and we wouldn't be able to see the sunrise!

We went back to Gyeongju after a breakfast of instant noodles for more sightseeing, and after a long day ended up in a slightly strange coffee shop waiting for our train back to the capital. Finally, Tae Eun and the two of us left Misun in Gyeongju as she has a job interview there. Five hours later we arrived into Seoul Station at 03:00 on Sunday morning. Tae Eun had volunteered her dad as a taxi driver, so we had yet another free ride to get home.

As we directed Tae Eun's father to our apartment, we drove around the ancient southern gate to Seoul, Namdaemun. Seeing the gate lit up as always, and surrounded by the skyscrapers of Seoul's financial district, was nice—it felt like coming home. We didn't know it at the time but we will probably never see our favourite Korean landmark again...

Days 441-442
Yeongju to Seoul

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

The Year of the Rat

Lunar New Year rituals [Enlarge]

Yesterday was Seolnal (Lunar New Year), and the oriental world entered the Year of the Rat. Coming round every twelve years, a year of the rat is, apparently, a time of hard work, activity, and renewal. So 2008 is going to be a good year to begin a new job, get married, launch a product or make a fresh start. But for us, the best bit about lunar new year was that we got three days holiday! We decided to celebrate by taking a friend up on her offer of spending a traditional Korean new year with her and her family in the countryside.

We took a train from Cheongnyangni, in the north of Seoul. It was an evening departure and the whole journey was in the dark, so sadly we didn't see anything of Korea on the way. Our friend Misun picked us up in Punggi, her ancestral home town and the place where her grandparents still live. After a comfortable night in the Punggi Hotel, we got all dressed up for new year's day, including a borrowed traditional hanbok for Isla, and Misun's mum picked us up.

As we drove out of town, we got our first real sight of rural Korea. We were in a flat valley surrounded by steep tree-clad mountains. It was a cold day, but we received a warm welcome at the family home. At least twenty people had already gathered when we arrived. Misun told us that her grandfather was away, visiting his elder brother's house. He would return to his own home soon and then the new year rites would begin. The tradition which almost everyone follows at lunar new year is to return to their home town, to the home of the oldest male relative on the father's side, to pay their respects to the senior members of the family, and to their ancestors. This is a Confucian tradition, so whatever the family's religion (whether Christian, Buddhist or atheist), they still tend to observe these rituals.

Wearing traditional Korean hanbok [Enlarge]

The family living room had been converted into an ancestral shrine: a low table was set up against the back wall, and a screen filled with traditional Chinese calligraphy stood behind. The women began bringing plate after plate of food from the kitchen. The food was set out on the table in a very particular and symbolic order—soju at the back, then beef, chicken and fish, ddeok (glutinous rice cakes), eggs, puffed rice cakes, apples, korean pears and dried persimmons. Then the women disappeared again and the most senior men in the family went through a complicated bowing ritual to the food and lit incense. The sombre atmosphere in the living room contrasted with the chatter and laughter we could hear coming from the kitchen. The women in the kitchen were not actually related to each other—this was the house of the male line and they had all married into the family. We all stood back from the shrine, Westerners and Koreans making awkward conversation via the translation services of Misun, who, since her father has passed away and her brother was back in Seoul, was representing her father at the ceremony. As we wondered what was going to happen next, Misun told us that we were giving the ancestors a chance to enjoy the food. Finally, we were allowed to sit down and enjoy the feast! We were honoured with a privileged position at the main table next to Grandfather, and after we had started eating the women came in and joined us.

Apart from an old armchair placed in the kitchen, the house was devoid of furniture. It was a single storey house with very low doors. The whole front of the house was a long glass verandah and the rooms opened off this towards the back of the house. They didn't have windows, and the bedroom had a tiny doorway through which you almost had to crawl. This design is great for regulating the temperature through the year. Many Koreans sleep on mats on the floor, which are put away in the cupboards every day. They also sit on the floor to eat and watch TV.

At times like this Glenn wishes that he was able to sit on the floor like a Korean. But he isn't Korean, and he can't sit on the floor. Trying to sit cross-legged and eat from a low table for more than five minutes is impossible. With extreme pins and needles in his legs, he kept making excuses to stand up and Grandmother kept shooing him back down telling him to make himself comfortable! She really had no idea that he was trying to do just that. It's a shame that this is one cultural gap that is seemingly impossible to bridge. Isla is OK on the floor: maybe she was Korean in a past life.

For the duration of the meal, every kind of Korean food kept appearing from the kitchen in never-ending production line. Never knowing how much more would actually be coming, we were unable to pace ourselves and very soon we were completely full. The food was excellent and we did our best, but as always, we hardly made a dent in it. The only thing we really didn't like was the blanched octopus tentacles. Imagine eating a hard pencil eraser covered with suckers.

After lunch, we were invited to visit the family's tombs. This is another traditional part of the new year rites. Outside town, on the side of a steep hill we clambered down through the snow and mud to stand beside a large grass mound. Standing with our backs to each tomb we could look out over the valley, and the new highway that cuts through it. Tombs are always sited in the most auspicious place possible, which for Confucians means having a hill behind and a river or stream in front. The dead ancestors were given soju, apples and oranges and after some more bowing we left them.

The New Year's rituals complete, we could now relax. We played the traditional Korean New Year's board game Yunnori with Misun's younger cousins, who all wanted to practice their English with some real foreigners. Then we drove up to Sobaek mountain with Misun and her mum for a walk. Up here there was plenty of snow and ice on the ground, and with a strong February sun melting it in places, it was very slippery. Misun's mum turned out to be very fond of sliding down slopes on her bum. Misun liked it too, but she wasn't such a natural. The whole atmosphere of the day was very Christmassy: too much food, playing board games, a family walk in the country. We were so lucky to get a look at real Korean life.

Days 439-440
Seoul to Yeongju

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.