This weekend I visited the lively city of Seoul in the north-west corner of South Korea. Although it is true that I had always wanted to visit Japan’s nearest neighbor, the real reason for this trip involved the expiration of a certain stamp in my passport. Calling up the travel agency I soon realized that a three day “tour” to Korea was the best and cheapest way to go about rectifying the situation. And so off I went, accompanied by my friend Sakura and babysat by the lovely tour guides from MapTours.
While it is true that the flight from Osaka to Seoul is a mere one and a half hours, the fact that both cities’ airports are situated over an hour away from civilization means that I spent nine hours in transit on Friday. Upon arriving at our hotel (a Best Western without free shampoo), we immediately set out to find yakiniku. Yakiniku is the Japanese word for Korean barbeque, that is, slices of beef self-cooked on a coal fire at your table. We were so famished that after eight minutes of fruitless searching we settled for something close: large slabs of pork self-cooked on a skillet at your table. Luckily for us, our server was the sort of person who is motivated, and his motivation led him to study Japanese by watching Japanese television; his Japanese was perfect and we had no problem with communication. The food was fabulous. We cooked the pork, cut it up, dipped it in a variety of sauces, rolled it up in some sheets of mochi (rice product), and ate it in one bite. Delicious.
After satisfying our bellies, we began the wandering process. We headed over toward Insadong, an area filled with traditional stores and galleries, a few random markets, and some quiet parks. Nighttime brought out the residents of Seoul for a stroll down an illuminated street. We finished up our evening by exploring the Namdaemun Market where I bought a large amount of Korean seaweed for a very low price. We stopped for bibimbap (Korean fried rice, kindof) and reimen (cold noodles) at a family restaurant on the way back.
Our first day, we were helped by strangers three times (once in English, twice in Japanese). Of our list of “foods to eat” (yakiniku, bibimbap, reimen, korean sushi, kimchi) we had consumed half.
We got up late on Saturday and made our way up to the Old Palace. Although my Korean friends, the travel agent, and the tour guide said that everything would be closed for New Years starting the 28th, they were all wrong. In fact, the Old Palace even had traditional activities going on in honor of the holiday. There was a Changing of the Guards ceremony at the front gate, and the Folk History Museum had all sorts of games set up in the back.
Traditional Korean New Years Activities:
-Seesaw: Court women jump up and down on a seesaw flinging each other into the air. It is said that this provided them with one way of looking over the walls.
-Top Spinning: I don’t know if it’s always done on a frozen pond, but that’s where I and a bunch of Korean kids spent many a minute trying to whip our tops to keep them spinning without falling down.
-Divining Board Game: Originally based on throwing divining sticks, this board games is pretty much the forerunner of Parcheesi.
-Arrow throwing: At least I think they used to be more like arrows. We just threw these long sticks and tried to get them through the hoops a few feet away. Much harder than it looks.
In addition, the Folk Museum had these little booths were you could make all sorts of traditional things. I was sorely tempted to make a bamboo flute, but I decided it would annoy my roommates too much if I started playing it.
After the Old Palace, we decided it was time for some religion. We walked down the street to a nearby Buddhist temple, Jongye-sa. It was not a particularly old temple (built in 1910), but it was the head temple of the largest sect of Buddhism in Korea. We went inside where the the monk had just started chanting. In most Japanese temples there are three divisions of space: the place for the practitioners near the door, the place for the monks in the middle, and the altar for the Buddha at the back. The light seems to dimish as you proceed further into the space. This temple was completely different. The entire space was open. The front wall was flat, save for the alcove for the Buddha. On the walls were painted thousands of small Buddhas, which you could see clearly because everything was bright. Along the front wall ran a long altar on to which practitioners could place their offerings of fruit or water. While I always feel like I am entering a mysterious place when I go into a Japanese temple, this time I felt like I was joining in a friendly get-together. Perhaps it was the style of chanting which helped to create this atmosphere as well. Japanese chants are notoriously monotone and the words are unrecognizable, but the Korean monk’s chant was very melodious and if I could have understood Korean, I think I would have been able to tell what he was saying. The style reminded me very much of the Hindu chants I heard when I visited a Hari Krishna temple for a research paper a few years ago. In any case, I am now resolved to find out more about Korean Buddhism, since it is something that all my classes pretty much skipped over on their way from China to Japan.
Next on the agenda: food. We were successful in finding yakiniku, only mildly deterred by the language barrier, and managed to have a tasty meal of grilled meat and all the kimchi, vegetables, and pickled objects that came with it. (Did I mention that kimchi is served with everything? You don’t have to order it). Although my mouth had taken a beating the day before while adjusting itself to spicy food, it adjusted quite quickly and I had no problems with the any of the dishes. In fact, I have become a big fan of kimchi and the cold kimchi soup.
After a quick nap and some postcard writing back at the hotel, we headed out to one of the greatest tourist traps in Seoul, the Seoul Tower. My guidebook is only one year old, but Korea must have figured out what suckers tourists are since then, because the prices had doubled. Although the smog (or silt from China, not sure) cut off many of the twinkling lights, including the tallest building in Seoul, it was still a decent view of the city. The highlight, however, was the little boy standing in line with us for the elevator who, seeing me (white person) and hearing Sakura and I speaking Japanese, gave me a puzzled look and asked in English, “Where are you from?” We had a pleasant little basic English chat until the elevator came. His mother looked so proud.
We hit up Myeong-dong, the fashion/clothing/market nightlife area, on the way back from the Tower. I spied some sushi (korean sushi uses the absolutely delicious korean seaweed) at one of the stalls on the side of the road and we joined the throngs of hungry teenagers for a snack. I ordered some Korean beer, which unfortunately turned out to be quite watery, so I got a hot dog on a stick wrapped in reconstituted fish stuff and dipped in a ketchup/red pepper sauce to excite my palate. It was surprisingly tasty.
The Korean trip ended the next morning when the bus to the airport picked us up and escorted us to a Kimchi Specialty store. We listened to the spiel, drank corn tea, tested the kimchi, and got back on the bus.
Thus ends my narrative. Pictures are here.
Goodbye, Korea. Hope to see you again sometime.
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