Korea: The Final Day

I actually only visited one landmark on my last day in Korea, before I had to head back to Incheon airport and take my flight back to Tokyo. I slept in a little bit, because I wasn’t going to meet up with everyone at Changdeokgung palace until 11:30 am, when the first guided English tour started. I woke up, ate breakfast, and took my time packing my bags.

I walked over to Changdeokgung Palace at around 10:30 and bought everyone’s tickets for the guided tour. Of course everyone paid me back when they finally arrived. Since I still had some time to wait for them to come, I killed some time at a small nearby cafe, and then went to a convenience store and picked up some last minute Korean snacks to give as omiyage back at the workplace. I also bought myself a lot of skittles. I feel that since I live in Japan, and skittles aren’t available there, I am entitled to buy myself American things in Korea that I miss.

The front gate of Changdeokgung Palace

Teresa, Hanna, and everyone else arrived just ten minutes before the tour started. Our tickets actually came in two parts. One as the entrance ticket to the palace, and the other that allowed us to go on the tour of the “Secret Garden” at Changdeokgung Palace. The Secret Garden Tour was about an hour and a half long. We learned that the Secret Garden portion of the Palace was used primarily for rest and relaxation, where the King and Queen wouldn’t have to worry about political affairs. One of the first buildings was a library. There were also very many pavilions just for sitting around looking at the scenery around different ponds. We also saw the building where many of the concubines slept, and the small house where the King would invite people for lunch, though the kitchen was in a separate building.

What I loved about the Secret Garden, and well, historic Korean buildings in general, is the gorgeous architecture and the beautiful painting put into the buildings, even if they weren’t so important. For instance, below is a photo of the inner ceiling of just one of many random outdoor pavilions.

Pavilion Ceiling

Of course, one of the more real fun parts of the tour was when the tour guide was explaining the gates to one of the buildings. The gate had a tall middle for the King to go through, and two smaller gates for his fellow politicians to walk through on either side of them, so that they had to bow slightly, as representation of their service to the King. The tour guide called out to see who the tallest person in the group was, and asked Rikki to come up and demonstrate going through the gate.

Too tall to serve the King of Korea I guess.

After the garden tour, we walked around some of the big buildings in the main complex of the Palace. The Secret Garden actually took up most of the space of Changdeokgung Palace, so I can safely say I saw most of the Palace complex before I had to run back to my hostel, grab my bags, and take the express train to the airport.

The thing about both Changdeokgung Palace, and Gyeongbokgung Palace, is that many of the buildings kept being moved and rebuilt between the two palaces. So Gyeongbokgung Palace is known for being the place where one of Korea’s empresses was tragically assassinated by the Japanese in her sleep, but the bed and part of the building she was assassinated in is actually currently located at Changdeokgung Palace. I made sure to take the time to see the famous Royal “Tragedy” bed before saying good-bye and heading back home.

It is a pretty cool bed though.

I actually packed quite a bit into my short trip to Seoul. I wish I could’ve stayed longer and seen more, and possibly go to the DMZ. As I was leaving I knew that would definitely have to come back.

A few impressions I’ve had of Korea in comparison to Japan:

1. People in Korea are more friendly and open than Japanese, but less polite. While clothes shopping, a few friendly store clerks walked over and asked if I would like to try something on, and if they could help me find something in my size. There were a few times when I would get confused with Korean money and hand over the wrong bills.  A few times I got a warm smile, and an explanation that they needed different bills that I was holding in my hand, but other times I’d get snippy response of “No. it’s 8000 won.”  Also, at one shop in Gangnam, I wanted to try on a t-shirt. I walked over to the dressing room with it, and as I was just getting ready to close the curtain, one of the saleswoman rushed in and shouted “No! You can’t try on!” grabbed the shirt out of my hand, and rushed off. I was son angry that I just stomped out of the store.

2. Korea is dirtier than Japan. It’s not as dirty as say, Naples, Italy, or certain places I’ve seen in Latin America, but it was enough for me to take notice of it. Also, as I was looking out the window of my plane as it landed in Korea, I noticed a faint haze over the city. There’s more air pollution over there, and I’m not sure if it’s something produced in Korea itself, or if it travelled over from nearby China, because a lot of the strong winds even bring the dirty air all the over to Japan.

3. Korean standards of beauty are different than in Japan. There’s more focus on boys looking good and being well-groomed in Korea, than what I’ve noticed in Japan. I know many Westerner’s might think Japan has a “girly” standard for men when they see some advertisements for men’s grooming products, but in Korea it’s more visible. Also, women in Korea are just as obsessed with their appearance as Japanese women, but there’s more focus on being “beautiful” and “elegant”, rather than “cute” and “youthful.” There’s many beautiful women in Korea, but they don’t try to look “delicate” like most of the women in Japan. I noticed a huge absence of overly frilly clothes in Korea, which are super popular in Japan.

Also, plastic surgery is very common in Korea. Not necessarily even drastic cosmetic procedures. It’s very common for women, girls, and sometimes even men, to go into  “outpatient” cosmetic surgery clinics, just get “tiny things” fixed. Part of it has to do with the very blasé attitude toward plastic surgery in Korea. We actually saw a woman walking around Gangnam with a surgical mask on. From far away, we just assumed she had a cold, and was walking around with the mask (as is common in many asian countries.) Yet, as we got closer, we could see the thick bandages that were wrapped and tapped over her nose!

I also noticed many nicely decorated buildings in Gangnam and other areas in Seoul that turned out to be plastic surgery clinics.

Gangnam plastic surgery clinic

 

4. Of course, the last thing is about the food. I actually learned how kimchi came to be THE Korean national dish. Of course it didn’t just happen by accident, but I still find the story interesting. Much Korea’s food came from agriculture, but the winters are much harsher there than in Japan. Many vegetables didn’t grow, or last throughout the winter, and so malnutrition became a problem. Eventually, Korean women realized that certain spices helped preserved many vegetables long term, so they would gather vegetables together, and mix them with the spices together in large groups. Then they’d take their share home in large pots that were kept in the ground. During the winter, they’d pull the kimchi vegetables out of the pots to add to their meals. So for the longest time kimchi was known as “winter vegetables” in Korea, and then just eventually became a staple at any meal year round.

While I’m not a fan of spicy food, I did try eating the various kimchi side dishes. I actually liked the radish kimchi, because the spices didn’t soak all the way through, so it wasn’t as harsh as the other types of kimchi. Even though I tried to avoid many of the super spicy Korean dishes, for my first three days back in Japan, I had a hard time eating Japanese food, because everything tasted so bland! Of course, eating some garlic and miso ramen helped to fix that!

Even though the new school term is about to start up again next week, all I can think about is how soon can I return to Korea? It was so much fun! If any of my friends, or my brother or sister, come to visit me in Japan for more than a week, I am definitely going to take them on a side trip to Seoul!

 

Korea Part 2

Let’s see how much I can spill of my Korea trip in this post tonight.

On my second full day in Seoul, I tried getting in contact with my friend Teresa, who is a fifth year JET in Saitama. Teresa rented a Korean cell phone from the airport, and I couldn’t use my iPhone in Korea, so I had to call her using the hostel’s phone at the front desk. I eventually got a hold of her, and she, and the other ALTs she was with, were starting their day by going to N Seoul Tower, and that later, they were going to Myeongdong for lunch. I told I would attempt to find them in Myeongdong around noon, and that if we couldn’t find each other, then we’d try meeting up again tomorrow.

After that phone call, I walked a few blocks down to Gyeongbokgung Palace. I was going to go to Changdeokgung Palace right across from my hostel, but it was closed.

I arrived at Gyeongbokgung  just in time to see the changing of the guard ceremony! No one lives at the palace anymore, but every once in awhile they have volunteers dress up in traditional Korean clothing and do a mock up of a changing of the guard ceremony as it would have happened hundreds of years ago. It’s from a specific era in Korean history, but I can’t remember the name of it. I’m terrible at Korean names. The only reason I’m typing in the names of the palaces correctly is because I’m still referring to my tour book.

Tail end of the changing of the guard ceremony at Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Gyeongbokgung Palace is HUGE! I saw most of the palace compound, but I probably would’ve needed another hour to see everything. The palace was also very crowded with many tour groups and school groups. There were even a few Japanese high school groups, because I could overhear Japanese words. Two different Japanese girls came up to me, and asked me to take pictures of them and their friends, and handed me their phones and cameras to take the pictures.

While I was walking around one of the outside pavilions of the palace, a group of Korean school girls came up to me, and asked “Will you please take picture . . . us?” I said “sure,” expecting them to hand a camera in my hand. Instead, they led me over to a bench, and had me sit in the middle of their group, and I was in the picture with them. I was definitely not expecting that! I was pulled into another school photo later on, and then I was pulled into a photo with either a Vietnamese, or Filipina mother/daughter duo on Vacation. I was the gaijin superstar!

Aside from being the gaijin superstar, Gyeongbokgung Palace had some lovely architecture, and it was definitely more colorful than traditional Japanese buildings.

The colorful throne room.

Even the ceiling is ornate

Around 11:45 I rushed from Gyeongbokgung to the nearest train station to meet Teresa and friends in Myeongdong. I actually managed to find them pretty quickly after exiting the train station! When everyone was finally together, we had lunch. I don’t remember the name of the dish we had, but was over two different hot pots, where meat and vegetables were thrown together. We also had plates of different kimchi and other side dishes. Everyone got their own tin of rice. When the meat was done cooking the hot pot, everyone would take the their chopsticks, and serve themselves meat into their rice tin. Also, at this meal, we learned that it  is bad manners in Korea to lift your dishes from the table in order to eat. (Not so in Japan.) I don’t why it’s considered bad manners, but we figured that since we were all foreigners, we could pick up our plates and bowls if wee needed to, without offending anyone.

Most of the afternoon was spent shopping around Myeongdong. Myeongdong mostly has accessory and cosmetics shops, and not so much in the way of clothing and shoes. I ended up buying various different face masks and lotions, and even a bottle of nail polish that looked like an ice cream cone.

As the sun was setting, Hanna, a Saitama JET, knew of a place where we could try on traditional Korean Hanbok and take pictures. She turned to us and asked, “Do you think the boys would be interested in that?” “Interested in what?” they asked. She then told them “cheeseburgers” and explained that they were special Korean cheeseburgers. We walked to a tall building that had different restaurants, and the Myeongdong tourism association, on different floors. We went to the tourism office and immediately asked about trying on the hanbok. The boys were actually disappointed it wasn’t actually cheeseburgers.

I’m glad I got to try on the hanbok, and it was free! Every girl got a different hanbok to put on. Rikki, one of the boys, also tried on hanbok, but they had to find the largest one for him because he’s the tallest of us all. It’s actually much easier, and more comfortable to wear hanbok than it is to wear a yukata.

Left to right: Anna, Rikki, Nozomi, Me.
Not pictured: Cheeseburgers.

Fun little fact: apparently the style and color hanbok I wore is traditionally a wedding hanbok. The one that Hanna wore would have been a “beggar’s” hanbok. Everyone looked good though.

We had dinner at another hot pot place, but this time we had chicken instead of beef. After dinner we did even more shopping at the big Lotte Duty Free department store. I didn’t do much more shopping. It was crowded like crazy inside! But we did take some pictures with different Kpop store posters outside.

We finished the night by going to Hongdae, which is known as the artsy district of Seoul. We were going to meet a friend of Teresa’s who works as an English teacher in Korea. We walked around some of the different shops, and ended up in a gallery with a quirky design store attached. Honestly, being in this part of Seoul is kind of like going through the art galleries, and quirky gift shops around Seattle, except all of the signs are in Korean.

We eventually met up with Teresa’s friend, and had a drink at an Irish pub before going our separate ways to our different hostels for the next day.

The next day, we all met at Apgujeong station in Gangnam, and of course, started our Gangnam tour with a Starbucks coffee. I have to explain a little bit here. In Psy’s song “Gangnam Style” some of the lyrics loosely translate into “I like a girl who buys, and drinks hot coffee.” It is a reference to people who live, or visit the ritzy area, just so they can be seen looking fashionable at a cafe with an expensive cup of coffee. We actually ended up going to Starbucks twice that day, but that was completely an accident.

Teresa had a list, and a not so detailed map of some small alleyways in Gangnam where different Kpop music companies have their office buildings. We found the buildings for SM Town, which produces music for groups like SHINee, Girl’s Generation, and Super Junior. We also found the buildings for CUBE and JYP, but I don’t know many of the artists from those (though Teresa, and some of the girls got excited.)

Later, Teresa finally found the SM Town building that actually had the merchandise shop, and a photo machine where you can pretend to take photos with the stars!

We totally took our pictures with the stars!

 

After Gangnam, we headed over to Lotte world. Lotte World is a cheesy amusement park in Seoul built and run by the Lotte company. Kind of like Hershey Park in America. We ended up getting a discount ticket since we waited until after 7pm to enter. What’s silly is that Lotte world has two different tickets. the basic ticket, and the special ticket. the basic ticket gets you into the park, but then you can’t go on any rides or play any games, but if you pay for the special ticket you get “ride privileges,” and have to show your tickets before you get on each ride to prove you paid for the special ticket. Definitely money gauging.

It was definitely set up like a Disneyland knock-off. They had a parade going around when we entered, and they had a man dressed like Aladdin, and behind him was a man dressed almost like Jafar, and there was a Princess Jasmine-like character trapped in a snow globe.

Some of the rides were all closing at different times, so we didn’t go on many rides. I got to go on two roller-coasters, and on the bumper cars, so I still had fun. What was interesting was noticing the small cultural difference between Korea and America in just going around on bumper cars. We noticed that the Koreans going on would only try to bump into their friends, and even then, wouldn’t try to bump hard. They also tried to warn their friends before bumping them. A few Korean girls would even point to their friends and say “bump you” and wait for their friends to say “okay” before bumping them. I decided to just go in and bump everyone I came across with no mercy. We went on the bumper cars in two different groups, so I only have pictures of Hanna, Eric and Rikki on the bumper cars. But Hanna took some pictures when me Anna, and Teresa went on, and Hanna told me I looked like a laughing maniac in some of the pictures. I’m still waiting for her to give me my copy.

This was definitely something I wouldn’t have bothered to do on my own in Seoul, but either way, it was still fun to hang out with a group of friends at an amusement park. I haven’t done that since I went to Tokyo Disneyland with other JETs back in October.

I’m almost done talking about my trip to Korea! I will continue tomorrow! Once again, please stay tuned.

Korea! Part One

 

So as the school year ended, and the school staff transitions and prepares for the new school year, there’s close to nothing for the ALTs to do at work except for “show up.”

I decided to take one day of my daikyu from this past term, and take some of my regular vacation time, and go on an extended weekend to Seoul! I’ve been meaning to go to South Korea for awhile, and I missed out on opportunities to visit my friends while she was living there last year. South Korea is right there by Japan, pretty safe for a lone traveler, and cheap. I was planning on taking a day trip to the DMZ as well, but then decided against it, what with the current political climate, and with some of the activities going on between the North and the South now, it’s a good thing I went to Seoul when I did!

I ended making my hostel and plane reservations before I realized that some other ALTs in Saitama prefecture were also planning on going to Seoul around the same time I was. I would’ve gone to Seoul whether or not people were coming anyway, but it was good to meet up with them and travel with company!

I flew to Incheon airport from Narita on Saturday, March 23rd. I stayed in Seoul until Wednesday, March 27th. The flight was around 2 hours long. Even though I landed in Korea around 5pm, I ended up not making it to my hostel until around 9pm. It was fast going through customs, but it took forever for me to find the desk where I could buy a T-money card, which is is used for going around the Seoul subway system. When I finally got my card, I had to wait another half hour to take the express train to central Seoul station.

I was able to figure out the subway and make it to the train station closest to my hostel, but then I had to walk four blocks and down a few dark alleyways to find it. It was a little nerve-wracking wandering around by myself while carrying my duffel, but I found my hostel in good time. My hostel was in a part of Seoul called Insa-dong, which is part of the historical district, and was right across the street from Changdeokgung Palace.

One of the workers at the hostel pointed out a well-lit road not far away where I had my first Korean dinner. It was in this tiny restaurant run by an older woman and her husband. I ate a beef soup called galbi-tang, because the picture on the menu made it seem like it wouldn’t be too spicy. It wasn’t thank goodness! But I was also treated to a nice surprise in Korean cuisine. They love their side dishes, and give you as much as three different ones, free of charge!

Galbi tang! and side dishes.

I’m not usually a fan of spicy food, but I did try eating at least a little bit of kimchi if it was ever served to me. Thank goodness a lot of places had rice as a side dish!

The next day I was my first full day by myself. I got myself up a little bit earlier than I would’ve liked, so that I could catch the train and go to Palm Sunday mass at Myeongdong Catholic Cathedral. I got to the station just fine, but the directions on the map didn’t make any sense. I kept going down different side streets hoping I was going in the right direction. Eventually, I could see the spire over the other buildings, but as I walked in the direction of the church, I kept hitting different dead ends, and would have to circle around, before I finally found it. I arrived only ten minutes after Mass had started at 9am, and it turned out to be in English!

The priest was a white foreigner, but everyone else who did the readings at the altar was a Korean student of English. There were other foreigners in the congregation, and I could tell who was also a tourist, because most of them held their backpacks in front of them. Also, since Korea does not have a tropical climate, the blessed palms were small cedar palms. I managed to bring mine back home to Japan in my checked luggage.

The front of Myeongdong Catholic Cathedral.

After church was over, I decided to maybe head to a cafe, and walk around Myeongdong district and do some shopping. However, after walking around a few blocks, I realized most of the stores weren’t going to open for another hour and a half, so I decided to go to the War Memorial Museum.

The War Memorial Museum in Seoul has three main floors, and monuments outside of the building, most of which is dedicated to the Korean war. One of the most striking monuments outside of the museum is a statue depicting two brothers who fought in different sides of the war, and embraced each other when they found each other on the battlefield. Apparently it’s based on a true story.

The two brothers

The base of the monument represents the split of Korea underneath their feet, even though they cling for reunification. If you go inside the monument, inside is a map with dedications to each of the UN countries that helped in the Korean War.

On the other side of the Museum, they had old tanks and warplanes that were once used in the Korean war on display; although  a few tanks were ones from South and North Korea from the past 20 years.

They also had a model South Korean Navy ship from around 2002, that was shot down by North Koreans. As I walked onto the model boat, I couldn’t help but notice some random red painted blotches in some of the fake glass windows. For awhile, I just though it was sloppy repairs, but as I walked further inside, I noticed that more and more of the red painted splotches were around what looked like fake, molded bullet holes.

The museum also had an exhibit dedicated to ancient warfare inside. My favorite part was the model armored “turtleboat” from the 1300’s. So while Japan tried to repeatedly invade Korea, Korea eventually gained an advantage in aquatic warfare with these ships. They weren’t as fast as Japanese ships, but they could make tighter turns, were much more substantial, and would crush the delicate Japanese ships.

Look at how cool the Turtle Boat is!

After the museum, i head back towards Namdaemun Market and Myeongdong, so I could do some shopping. Namdaemun was mostly knock off shoes, clothing and bags. Not much different from many flea markets that I used to see around Italy. I walked through Myeongdong until sunset before I made may to nearby Namsan park, and took the cable car up to the N Seoul Tower. The line for the cable car was a little long, and it was a bit of a wait going up the N Seoul Tower, but I really wanted to see the night view, and I did not feel like walking up the hill to the tower.

View of N Seoul Tower as you leave the cable car.

The N Seoul tower can be seen from many places around Seoul, but the tower itself isn’t that tall, it’s just very far up the hill. It’s not as tall or as big as the Tokyo Tower, or the Tokyo Sky Tree, but the view is just as beautiful. It was hard to take good photos though, because the glare through the windows was pretty bad. The coolest about the N Seoul Tower, was that different signs on different windows would point out which far off cities were in different directions, and listed how far away they were.

North Korea is in that direction.

I took the cable car back down the hill, and went and got dinner back in the Myeongdong district before heading back to my hostel for the night. I got a traditional Korean dish called bibimbap, which is basically a rice pot, with different toppings on top. Underneath all of the my toppings, was this a large amount of chili sauce over the rice. Luckily, many Korean dishes come with a large wooden spoon, along with chopsticks, and I was able to scoop out some of the rice underneath that wasn’t smothered in hot sauce.

Bibimbap

After dinner I trudged back to my hostel, and slumped into my bunk around 10:30 pm, which after that night, was probably the earliest I went to bed the whole time I was in Seoul. When I finally met up with my friends, Teresa, Hanna, Rikki, and the other ALTs, we just kept busy. I made sure to take some advil before bed each night, because we walked so much! I swear I walked more in Seoul than I normally do around Tokyo and Saitama.

Well, I’m going to leave this blog post here for now. I’m getting pretty detailed in some of my adventures, and I still have three more days to talk about! The story continues tomorrow folks! Stay Tuned!