Saturday, November 03, 2007
Korea, Part 2
Well, since Liz and I saw all Busan had to see on the first day, we left first thing the next morning for Gyeongju, which was much more interesting. It was apparently the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom for several hundred years, and there were tombs and temples and fortresses everywhere. Silla tombs were pretty strange, though--they're basically giant (up to 30 feet tall!) mounds of dirt, with hollow stone caverns inside where the kings were interred. These little hills were all over Gyeongju; every block or so you'd turn a corner to see a couple of houses with a grass-covered mound in the backyard. Liz and I wandered through the parks at the center of the city, peeking into some of the tombs and snapping pictures of the ponds.
We also saw Cheomseongdae Observatory, apparently the oldest astronomical observatory in Asia. As far as heights are concerned it wasn't that impressed, but apparently it's built to reflect the cycles of nature: there are 365 stones in the tower, set in 13 rings like the 13 months of the Silla calendar, and so on. The sign went into great detail about how it was designed to symbolize all sorts of mathematical principles.
After that we wandered through Banwolseng Fortress, which was actually a big grassy field where you could occasionally see a row of stones that must have been a wall centuries ago. Nothing that interesting.
Anapji Pond was worth seeing. It was a giant manmade lake, surrounded by pagodas and pavilions, apparently the Silla emperor's pleasure gardens. Next was the Gyeongju National Museum, featuring the Divine Bell of King Seondeok, which was a couple of hours well-killed, a walk through the Hyanggyo Confucian Academy, and a peek into the house belonging to the foremost family in the area, the Cheos. For dinner we had samgaetang, which was a while chicken stuffed with spices and ginger in rice soup. It was good, if bland. For desert we finished off a box of Gyeongju's speciality barley anpan (basically, barley pancakes with red bean paste in the middle).
Wednesday we tried to squeeze in as much sightseeing as we could. We started at Bulguksa, which was a pretty amazing Buddhist temple (once again set much further up a mountain than I really cared to hike). Then we hopped on a bus to the peak of the mountain to see Seokgulam Grotto, a cave with a gigantic Buddha statue carved into the rock.
For lunch it was more mandoo guk (gyoza soup), then we headed to Golgulsa, which TOTALLY ROCKED. It was a Zen meditation center built into a cliff, where you could climb up narrow, steep, and precarious trails (sometimes pulling yourself up by ropes and nervous chuckles of "Gee, that's quite a drop") and peek into dozens of tiny little caves full of statues and candles. Apparently it's famous all over Southeast Asia as a martial arts training school, so if you ever decide to pulll a Bruce Wayne and sell all your possessions, bid farewell to your family and friends, and hide yourself away from the world to master the martial arts, I'd recommend Golgulsa.
We took the bus back to the city and wandered around Seongdong Market for dinner. There were hundreds of little street vendors selling just about everything you could imagine. We settled on some kind of pad-thai-like dish and little fried veggie dumplings to snack on while riding the bus to Seoul.
Friday as we were hunting about for breakfast we stumbled across a Dunkin Donuts. We immediately had to drop everything and run into the store to taste REAL DONUTS for the first time in months--Japan has donuts but they're not very sweet; they're more like thick dinner rolls with whipped cream filling than actually *donuts*. Mmm, real donuts... They tasted *so* *good*...
We spent most of the day wandering around at the Korean Folk Village, a recreation of a traditional Korean country town. It was really interesting; there were weaving and dyeing demonstrations, a jail with torture rooms, live animals, costumed actors, the whole nine yards. Unfortunately it was drizzling so they cancelled all the shows; we'd really wanted to see the traditional dances, too...
The heavens opened up and we took refuge in a small family-owned restaurant where I tried bibinbap, a bowl filled with rice and vegetables and eggs that's so hot that it cooks as you watch. It's called 'bibinga' in Japan, and I must say I like the Japanese version better, as it actually has some kind of seasoning other than sesame oil and spicy red sauce. I've seen the special pickled vegetables that go in bibinga at the grocery store near my apartment here in Tokyo, so maybe I'll try to cook it Japanese-style sometime.
Huddling together under a small umbrella in the torrential rain, we waded our way to Chongdong Theater, where we saw a touristy but entertaining demonstration of traditional Korean dances. It started with pansori, which was sort of like opera, with a man playing a banjo-thingy while a woman sang her fury at the man that broke her heart. There were some amazing female drummers, who jumped around 5 drums apiece, ducking and weaving and dancing in unison. I was also impressed with the fan dancers. The show ended with a male dance and drumming troop. Strangely, the men had hats with a sort of puffy white pom-pom-on-a-ribbon thing, and they rotated their heads so that the pom-poms swumg around rhythmically. Excuse me for being incredibly un-politically correct and disrespecting a foreign culture, but I have never seen a man do anything quite as ridiculous as prance around on stage with ribbons and fluff balls. I mean, it was really cool how they could dance and jump around and do flips and still keep the ribbon twirling in perfect patterns, but they were *grown men*. With *pom-poms*. It was a little ridiculous.
Saturday we toured Seodaemun Prison, which is where the Japanese held Korean political prisoners during the occupation. It was funny to compare the English signs with the Japanese signs--the Japanese ones were a *lot* more vague and diplomatic. The English signs looked like someone had a bad case of thesaurus addiction: I counted a couple dozen variations on 'courageous' or 'patriotic' to describe the Koreans imprisoned there, and was awed at the number of ways they found to say 'savage, murderous killers' to describe the Japanese. I mean, I know what the Japanese did to Korea during the occupation was wrong, but don't you think 'rapacious' and 'abominable' are going a bit far?
That afternoon we wandered around downtown Seoul, strolling through Tapgol Park where the Korean independence movement began, meandering down Chonggye Stream at sunset, and poking through Namdaemun flea market. Downtown Seoul reminds me of Chicago, for some reason.
Liz had to catch a flight first thing in the morning on Sunday, but I had most of the day to wander around Seoul some more. I visited Changdeokgung Palace, then sat at a cafe in Insadong for an hour or so and had persimmon tea and a traditional Korean rice-puff desert. Insadong was a very fun neighborhood, full of quirky cafes and antique shops and great for people-watching. At the northern end was Jogye-sa, one of the founding temples of the Zen sect of Buddhism. (I got to hear another lecture about Japan, this time about how Korea's Zen sect is superior to Japan's Zen sect.) After that, it was time to catch the bus back to the airport and take the harrowing flight back to Narita.
To summarize, I had a lot of fun in Korea. I hadn't had a vacation in eight months, so I was SERIOUSLY overdue for some R&R. Everything was cheaper than Japan, and the countryside was beautiful. The Hangeul alphabet was also really easy to pick up--it's a very logical phonetic alphabet that took just a few days of halfhearted study to learn. It was fascinating comparing Korean and Japanese culture and seeing how the two had influenced each other.
On the other hand, Korea (as much as this will probably drive my Korean readers nuts) was basically Japan, just less interesting. I didn't care for the food, the temples were pretty but paled in comparison to Kyoto, the people were pushy and xenophobic and had no clue how to treat people from other cultures, and the subway and bus systems were crowded and smelly and difficult to use. I was happy to get back to Tokyo, where everything is spotlessly clean, the people are faultlessly polite, and I can live a blissfully kimchi-free life.
Anyway, thanks for sticking with this rambling rant for so long. I'll be putting up my pictures eventually for your viewing pleasure. Love you guys!
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We also saw Cheomseongdae Observatory, apparently the oldest astronomical observatory in Asia. As far as heights are concerned it wasn't that impressed, but apparently it's built to reflect the cycles of nature: there are 365 stones in the tower, set in 13 rings like the 13 months of the Silla calendar, and so on. The sign went into great detail about how it was designed to symbolize all sorts of mathematical principles.
After that we wandered through Banwolseng Fortress, which was actually a big grassy field where you could occasionally see a row of stones that must have been a wall centuries ago. Nothing that interesting.
Anapji Pond was worth seeing. It was a giant manmade lake, surrounded by pagodas and pavilions, apparently the Silla emperor's pleasure gardens. Next was the Gyeongju National Museum, featuring the Divine Bell of King Seondeok, which was a couple of hours well-killed, a walk through the Hyanggyo Confucian Academy, and a peek into the house belonging to the foremost family in the area, the Cheos. For dinner we had samgaetang, which was a while chicken stuffed with spices and ginger in rice soup. It was good, if bland. For desert we finished off a box of Gyeongju's speciality barley anpan (basically, barley pancakes with red bean paste in the middle).
Wednesday we tried to squeeze in as much sightseeing as we could. We started at Bulguksa, which was a pretty amazing Buddhist temple (once again set much further up a mountain than I really cared to hike). Then we hopped on a bus to the peak of the mountain to see Seokgulam Grotto, a cave with a gigantic Buddha statue carved into the rock.
For lunch it was more mandoo guk (gyoza soup), then we headed to Golgulsa, which TOTALLY ROCKED. It was a Zen meditation center built into a cliff, where you could climb up narrow, steep, and precarious trails (sometimes pulling yourself up by ropes and nervous chuckles of "Gee, that's quite a drop") and peek into dozens of tiny little caves full of statues and candles. Apparently it's famous all over Southeast Asia as a martial arts training school, so if you ever decide to pulll a Bruce Wayne and sell all your possessions, bid farewell to your family and friends, and hide yourself away from the world to master the martial arts, I'd recommend Golgulsa.
We took the bus back to the city and wandered around Seongdong Market for dinner. There were hundreds of little street vendors selling just about everything you could imagine. We settled on some kind of pad-thai-like dish and little fried veggie dumplings to snack on while riding the bus to Seoul.
Friday as we were hunting about for breakfast we stumbled across a Dunkin Donuts. We immediately had to drop everything and run into the store to taste REAL DONUTS for the first time in months--Japan has donuts but they're not very sweet; they're more like thick dinner rolls with whipped cream filling than actually *donuts*. Mmm, real donuts... They tasted *so* *good*...
We spent most of the day wandering around at the Korean Folk Village, a recreation of a traditional Korean country town. It was really interesting; there were weaving and dyeing demonstrations, a jail with torture rooms, live animals, costumed actors, the whole nine yards. Unfortunately it was drizzling so they cancelled all the shows; we'd really wanted to see the traditional dances, too...
The heavens opened up and we took refuge in a small family-owned restaurant where I tried bibinbap, a bowl filled with rice and vegetables and eggs that's so hot that it cooks as you watch. It's called 'bibinga' in Japan, and I must say I like the Japanese version better, as it actually has some kind of seasoning other than sesame oil and spicy red sauce. I've seen the special pickled vegetables that go in bibinga at the grocery store near my apartment here in Tokyo, so maybe I'll try to cook it Japanese-style sometime.
Huddling together under a small umbrella in the torrential rain, we waded our way to Chongdong Theater, where we saw a touristy but entertaining demonstration of traditional Korean dances. It started with pansori, which was sort of like opera, with a man playing a banjo-thingy while a woman sang her fury at the man that broke her heart. There were some amazing female drummers, who jumped around 5 drums apiece, ducking and weaving and dancing in unison. I was also impressed with the fan dancers. The show ended with a male dance and drumming troop. Strangely, the men had hats with a sort of puffy white pom-pom-on-a-ribbon thing, and they rotated their heads so that the pom-poms swumg around rhythmically. Excuse me for being incredibly un-politically correct and disrespecting a foreign culture, but I have never seen a man do anything quite as ridiculous as prance around on stage with ribbons and fluff balls. I mean, it was really cool how they could dance and jump around and do flips and still keep the ribbon twirling in perfect patterns, but they were *grown men*. With *pom-poms*. It was a little ridiculous.
Saturday we toured Seodaemun Prison, which is where the Japanese held Korean political prisoners during the occupation. It was funny to compare the English signs with the Japanese signs--the Japanese ones were a *lot* more vague and diplomatic. The English signs looked like someone had a bad case of thesaurus addiction: I counted a couple dozen variations on 'courageous' or 'patriotic' to describe the Koreans imprisoned there, and was awed at the number of ways they found to say 'savage, murderous killers' to describe the Japanese. I mean, I know what the Japanese did to Korea during the occupation was wrong, but don't you think 'rapacious' and 'abominable' are going a bit far?
That afternoon we wandered around downtown Seoul, strolling through Tapgol Park where the Korean independence movement began, meandering down Chonggye Stream at sunset, and poking through Namdaemun flea market. Downtown Seoul reminds me of Chicago, for some reason.
Liz had to catch a flight first thing in the morning on Sunday, but I had most of the day to wander around Seoul some more. I visited Changdeokgung Palace, then sat at a cafe in Insadong for an hour or so and had persimmon tea and a traditional Korean rice-puff desert. Insadong was a very fun neighborhood, full of quirky cafes and antique shops and great for people-watching. At the northern end was Jogye-sa, one of the founding temples of the Zen sect of Buddhism. (I got to hear another lecture about Japan, this time about how Korea's Zen sect is superior to Japan's Zen sect.) After that, it was time to catch the bus back to the airport and take the harrowing flight back to Narita.
To summarize, I had a lot of fun in Korea. I hadn't had a vacation in eight months, so I was SERIOUSLY overdue for some R&R. Everything was cheaper than Japan, and the countryside was beautiful. The Hangeul alphabet was also really easy to pick up--it's a very logical phonetic alphabet that took just a few days of halfhearted study to learn. It was fascinating comparing Korean and Japanese culture and seeing how the two had influenced each other.
On the other hand, Korea (as much as this will probably drive my Korean readers nuts) was basically Japan, just less interesting. I didn't care for the food, the temples were pretty but paled in comparison to Kyoto, the people were pushy and xenophobic and had no clue how to treat people from other cultures, and the subway and bus systems were crowded and smelly and difficult to use. I was happy to get back to Tokyo, where everything is spotlessly clean, the people are faultlessly polite, and I can live a blissfully kimchi-free life.
Anyway, thanks for sticking with this rambling rant for so long. I'll be putting up my pictures eventually for your viewing pleasure. Love you guys!
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