S.O.S.: Salve, O, Seoul

I must admit: I knew very little about Korea before my trip to Seoul. With the exception of a few short paragraphs in a textbook about the Korean War, I lacked the opportunity to study Korean history in school (even my "Foundations of East Asian Civ" class at Gonzaga University focused on China and Japan). Compared to the number of Japanese people I know, I know perhaps two Koreans. Simply put Korean culture is a culture I never experienced until this past weekend.

Daunting as it is to go to a country with no knowledge of the people or culture, I was saved by my Japanese friend Kasumi who studied abroad in Korea for two years. She was my navigator and translator. Could I have managed touring Seoul on my own? (Gulp) I think so, but I bet the trip would not have been nearly as smooth or fun. In addition to her knowledge of the language and culture, Kasumi knew all "the spots" for food, tourism, and lesser-known destinations off the tourist track. I profited from this trip by savoring new experiences I would miss flying solo.

While living on Fukue has its perks, getting anywhere is difficult especially if you are cheap (like me). Thus I split my travels into an evening and a morning: I took the ferry to Nagasaki and from there the train to Fukuoka. The trip took about 5.5 hours. I went to bed extremely late and woke up with an adrenaline rush the next morning to catch my flight to Seoul. I am relieved I left early because customs took longer than I expected. Leaving Japan I needed to cross my Ts and dot my Is so I would be allowed reentry.

First Things First: Beer

The flight to Seoul took less than an hour--piece of cake! Yet again at customs I hit a snag: I couldn't provide a Korean address because I neglected to ask Kasumi the name or address of the hostel we reserved. Looking extremely apologetic I explained the situation: my friend from Tokyo is set to arrive in an hour and a half, she knows the address, and (pointing abstractly) I can totally wait over there if you want. The customs officer proved kind and not a hard ass and gave me permission to enter Korea simply scribbling "Seoul" as my address on the card. What a lucky break! I was just another face in a sea of over 10 million people (25 million people total if you include the whole metropolitan area!).

Kasumi's flight arrived later that afternoon. We bused into Seoul, grabbed a snack, checked into our hostel, the Michigan House (which I recommend), and set off in search of "chime" or chicken and beer. We were successful and it was delicious. To my surprise and relief, Seoul has a growing craft beer scene no doubt in part due to the significant number of foreigners visiting and living there. I enjoyed my visit to Magpie Brewing Co., which I think is owned by an American, where I enjoyed a porter, the first real dark beer I tasted in months. Mmmm...

A Visit to Gyeongbokgung Palace

Saturday afternoon Kasumi had a friend's wedding to attend (that was why she was in Korea in the first place). I took that opportunity to visit Gyeongbokgung Palace, a tourist trap but an impressive landmark nonetheless. Built in 1395, it is one of several palaces in Seoul but is by far the largest. I eventually ran out of steam and gave up visiting each room and area on the grounds because it was so huge. Situated in the middle of Seoul, it's incredible to stand in this palace and see the city's skyscrapers forming an imposing background. I toured the grounds perhaps for 1.5-2 hours before leaving to grab coffee. Pictured above are some women dressed in traditional outfits. Apparently the weekend was a holiday to celebrate the creation of Hangul, the modern Korean alphabet. Up until 1443 Korean was written in Chinese characters. Due to the complexity of each character and the sheer number overall, only the educated elite could write. King Sejong introduced Hangul during his reign with the goal of every Korean attaining literacy. With a national average of 99.2% rate now (according to Google), I think he succeeded!

Panoramic shot of the palace's entrance with just a few of Seoul's skyscrapers in the background.

An impressive image of the palace in its heyday.

Jazz is Alive and Well Because Korea and Japan Preserve It

It is to my utter chagrin that when I typically tell my fellows Americans that I like jazz, people laugh and immediately write me off as a stuffy, boring person. I am relieved that many of the Japanese and Korean restaurants I visit play jazz; granted sometimes it sounds tinny and the kind you might hear in an elevator, but other times it is quite good and I simply smile in appreciation and think, "YES!"

After visiting Gyeongbokgung Palace and eating dinner, Kasumi and I found this random jazz venue and enjoyed the music immensely. The club was called "Club Evans" after the renowned pianist Bill Evans (a good a example as any of the owner's taste). We arrived just as a band was finishing but thankfully one more band played to round out the evening. The band consisted of a pianist (the leader), two electric guitarists, and one percussionist. The presence of the guitarists pleasantly surprised me as they added bass and depth to the music. The band appeared young; indeed, they couldn't have been older than me and were likely students at a nearby university. And yet their music and the unique improvisations that make jazz JAZZ were fantastic. The pianist introduced a few of her own songs which were quite good. I left the club wanting a CD, if only they had some for sale!

Jazz of course isn't dead in the U.S. (yet). I'm a huge fan of Taylor Eigsti and Greg Reitan and I don't doubt they have fans across the U.S. too. But if jazz continues to decline in popularity in the U.S., I'm looking for Asia to preserve it in the same way Muslim scholars preserved Greek and Roman knowledge during the Dark Ages in medieval Europe.

Foodie

Coming to Korea I knew there were a a host of new foods I wished to try including some old favorites like bibimbap (rice in a bowl mixed with vegetables, egg, and sometimes meat) and bulgogi (grilled marinated beef). Among the new dishes were cheesy fried rice, egg bread (an affordable and filling food acquired from a street-side vendor), haemul-pajeon (seafood and green onion pancake with other vegetables), samgyetang (stewed chicken with rice, garlic, and ginseng), gimbap (Korean sushi), japchae ("glass noodles" with vegetables and meat) among many others. Korean food was often quite spicy for me and thus there were some tears. But the food was certainly tasty and with enough water I survived. Who knows: I might actually build a tolerance some day!

Cheesy fried rice

Haemul-pajeon with makgeolli (the milky white rice wine pictured above; reminded me of nigori sake)

Just Some Damn Cool Experiences

I wanted to be creative and think up something like "The Old and the New", but it just sounded cliche. Anyways, I had the the opportunity to visit the Samsung HQ as well as go to a Korean folk play that incorporated modern technology.

Samsung was pretty neat. They had a free interactive exhibit open to the public. I received a paper wrist band with a code of sorts that whenever I scanned it at a console, it would display my picture, name , and the results of my tour up to that point. In this exhibit the computer helps you create a vocational profile of sorts based on how you test.

Emotionally I was said to be sophisticated; I am intuitively calm; and I am sensually thoughtful. This cumulatively resulted in me being a "idea factory manager" for "creating new ideas 24 hours a day", which I think is fairly accurate. Granted my ideas might not always be popular or great but I churn them out nonetheless.

See my results here:

See? I'm thoughtful.

That same day after a quick dinner Kasumi and I went to a folk performance at The Korea House, which regularly offers thematic plays of Korean folk stories. It was forbidden to take pictures and while I understand the reasoning, it is nevertheless a DAMN SHAME because words fail to capture what I saw. It was an exquisite mix of dance, song, music, comedy, and technology. The costumes were beautiful, the music both thunderous and solemn, and the acting great. At one point several actors began dancing and then drew charcoal outlines of mountains and rivers on this blank wall. As they left the stage, the projector projected color: grassy hills moving as the winds blew over individual blades of grass; the water gurgled and rippled a deep navy blue. The story too was compelling: a despondent daughter sacrificed her life so her blind father might see again, but angels rescued her, she met a king, fell in love and was reunited with her father again who could see once again when he arrived at the palace. No doubt it sounds sappy but when I read the program the play sounded depressing. It sounded like the story would simply be a Christ-like sacrifice with no hope for joy. I'm glad it didn't end that way!

There is my Korea trip in a nutshell. If you made it to this point, thank you so much for reading! Stay tuned for future posts. I can't imagine what I will write about next but something incidentally surprises me at least a few times a week (so that I have inspiration for future posts). Cheers!