Seoul, Part 1

I'm currently in Beijing and have found a coffee shop with free wireless. Things, connection-wise, are a bit slow over here behind the Great FireWall, but I got all the pics I want to share uploaded, so without further ado, here is what I did and saw during my stay in Seoul.

First of all, Seoul is so completely different from Tokyo in so many ways. Tokyo is quite flat, while Seoul is right in the mountains. Tokyo is very modern, while Seoul, tho' modern, has fewer skyscrapers. I have to say that Seoul more immediately reminded me of Mumbai than it did Tokyo - there was a noisy bustle and an energy there akin to what I'd experienced last summer. The smells of curry were replaced with wafts of kimchee and Korean style barbeque as I walked the streets.

The first place I visited was a folk village that had several restored homes - it was fun to walk through and see what things were like in South Korea way back when.The next place I visited was the beautiful Changdeokgung Palace (which is a bit redundant because "gung" or 宮 (that's "miya" in Japanese) means "palace"). This place was large and colorful and most notable for its "secret garden" which was really beautiful to see. I am not going to put a lot of commentary here between pictures - I'll just let you look at them:





After the palace I went over to a nice shopping/eating/people-watching area called Insadong. All along the street were vendors with stalls. I liked this little Korean flute player in his modern/traditional Korean wear:Next I came upon this guy holding up this sign. The side facing the camera is Korean, but the other side was English and it read, "Free Hugs." I hadn't heard of these folks until Michel ran into them in Tokyo. I guess they are all over the world standing and giving free hugs to people who want or need a hug. I thought it was a super idea, so I went up and got my free hug and then took his picture:Because Insadong has a lot of traditional shops and eateries, they told Starbucks, when they moved in, that the sign had to be in Korean:I had lunch in Insadong - a kind of spicy tofu soup, but it was a set so it included many other dishes - including a fish (whose eyes had gone milky with cooking):After lunch, I went to a Korean tea shop and had a cup of this tea called something like "five flavors tea." As you drink this tea, you experience flavors all over your tongue: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. It was really tasty, and it turned out to be quite a photogenic tea:Next I went to Seoul Tower - I took a cable car up and saw the view in the sunset and at dusk:
Day two began at a shop I saw that boasted healthy traditional Korean porridge. I like the word porridge - it's a word that's been with me ever since I read Goldilocks. I always wanted to taste some porridge that would be amazing and sweet and full of spice and not at all like the lumpy oatmeal I used to get at the Thomson-West cafeteria in the mornings before beginning work. After being in Asia, I realized that porridge over here is not really sweet but usually a savory, rice-based affair. In Japan it is often a very watery kind of over cooked rice that is easy to digest (so is usually eaten when sick). My porridge on my second day in Seoul was a mix of pumpkin and rice all blended together - the pumpkin made it a little sweet (so did the sweet beans on the top). I liked it, tho' it's still not the porridge of my fairytale reading days:
I spent the bulk of day two at Seoul's famous Gyeoungbokgung (I decided against the redundancy here). This palace is a maze of beautifully painted buildings. On this day, there were tons of school kids on class trips. Every time I passed a group, I was barraged with "Hello!" "How are you?" "Where are you from?" "How's the weather?" They were so out-going and fun to talk to.

After my trip to India, my father rightly observed that I didn't take enough people pictures. I wanted to rectify this, but didn't want to shove my camera in people's faces. But here at the palace, all these kids were quite happy to have their pictures taken. There was also a reinactment of an official ceramony at the palace which showed us what happens when the emperor's wife gives birth to an heir. In this ritual, they take all the afterbirth and wash it one hundred times in fresh water to insure long life and then present it to the emperor. So I got some pics of this odd little ceremony. They were actually washing some fleshy thing, but I don't really know (nor want to know) what it actually was. I don't suppose it was actual afterbirth or an umbilical cord as this was only for pretend. At any rate, here are my pictures (with people!) of Gyeongbokgung:







In addition to kimchee, one must eat bibimbap when in Korea - it's a must. So I did. bibimbap is a bunch of veggies and meat and an egg served in a hot stone bowl. You get it and mix it up with your chopsticks or spoon and dig in. Here it is before being mixed:And here I am standing in front of a statue of a dog. This was a series of figures representing the animals of the Chinese zodiac - I am a dog (obviously).

Maybe I should buy a dog when I return home and get a job.

Stay tuned for the following episodes: "The Great Wall" and "The Forbidden City"