Long Overdue Update: Asia Trip part 2.5
Hi, all. As usual, it has been hard to find time to update this space. Quick thingies:
Anyway, on with the Asia trip!
The second leg of our Asia trip took us to Korea (South). It's funny to me that most people in the U.S. refer to it as "South Korea," but Sce and her family just refer to the country as "Korea." It's almost as if they don't consider the North at all - Korea is simply half of its former size.
We had a shortish afternoon flight from Tokyo to Inchon (made famous during the Korean War by General Douglas MacArthur), and after hacking through customs, met the driver that Sce had arranged to pick us up and take us to the Ritz-Carlton Seoul (it sounds impressive, but it wasn't, really. We got a good rate, and Sce's employer was paying since she was working on this leg of the trip).
The cut text, by the way, comes from this goofy and disturbing video that played on our default TV channel in the hotel. It's a promotional video for Korea, and it featured a white guy in London (with an American accent) getting sucked into Korea through his cellphone. It features a lot of dancing, and a lot of somewhat forced lyrics. "Korea's IT" meant Information Technology and a bunch of other things that I don't remember now, but I still hear the song echoing in my nightmares.
We collapsed into our (extremely hard!) bed, and woke up in the morning planning our assault. Sce was scheduled to go to the Korea Electronics Show, and I was going to spend time hanging out with her parents, who were traveling to Asia at the same time. I met up with the folks and Sce's aunt who lives in a suburb of Seoul, and we took a trip to the Korean Folk Village, where people live and preserve the folk culture and customs for educational purposes.
The village was overrun with a multitude of school children, all of whom wore matching outfits and traveled in gigantic, dust-cloud-raising herds. I saw a few cool things at the folk village, and it was kind of cute how all the kids would start practicing their English on me as soon as they saw me.
A representative horde, settling in to watch some see-saw trampolining and a tightrope walker:
Myself and my in-laws, standing on a stone dam (pic taken by Sce's aunt):
These jars are where the various fermented pastes used in Korean cooking (both traditional and modern) are prepared. This is very close to the way it's been done for centuries; these are sealed using contemporary technologies, but the principle is the same. Very cool:
After the folk village, Sce's aunt had a previous engagement and dropped us off near a bus stop. We took the inter-city bus back to Seoul, to check out the famous shopping street Insadong. After some navigational fiddling, we did make it, and I did some preliminary gift-shopping for the family. While shopping, Sce called and let me know she was back from the Electronics Show. We caught a cab back to the hotel, and here's where my memory fails me a bit. I believe it was this night that we went to visit another of Sce's local relatives. They had laid on an amazing feast, and we enjoyed good company and interesting conversation for the remainder of the evening.
The next day, we woke up early and Sce's folks came to meet us at the hotel. We found some food around the corner, and then caught a cab to go see Changdeokgung Palace. While not the most famous palace in Seoul, Changdeokgung is the place that the last emperor of Korea lived in, up through the '80s (I believe). It features some stunning architecture - on a FAR larger scale than anything we saw in Japan - and acres of gorgeous, lush foliage dotted with pavilions and ponds called The Secret Garden. We had a lovely hike around the grounds, and then headed back to Insadong to get some tea.
The entry gate to Changdeokgung - A larger scale:
This is a really cool thing. It's a sundial of course, but the cool thing was that it was so overcast this day and the sun picked this moment to come out as the docent lady was showing us how it worked:
Probably my favorite picture from the whole series in Korea:
Attempting to navigate the Secret Garden:
We had some lovely cool tea at a second-floor tea house in Insadong, then wandered around checking out various wares and food items. We ended up grabbing a couple of snacks, some drinks, and sitting for a spell next to a stream that was reclaimed in the past couple of years from being paved over as a freeway:
We then bopped around the Namdaemun open air market, checking out the places that Sce's folks used to go to shop, and where they'd meet to sneak some private time when they were dating. That was quite nice, actually. We had food at various junctures, some substandard noodles, and some delicious BBQ beef. After that, we saw Namdaemun (the city gate that the market is named after):
We then made our way to a show that we thought was a traditional Korean dance/drumming show, but which turned out to be a far more contemporary creation.
Part 2b to follow.
- I was monumentally ill over New Year's and it sucked.
- I am in the middle of Day 5 of the Master Cleanse. So far, so good.
- In the space of three weeks from December to January, our diabetic cat (Leah) had a hypoglycemic episode and had to go to the pet E.R., Chewie (our male cat) developed bladder blockage from his bladder stones, had to go to the pet E.R., and then had surgery to get the stones removed, and Annie (our female dog) developed her second urinary tract infection in 3 months. *sigh*
- I'm still going down to San Diego every other week, and it looks to continue at least through February.
Anyway, on with the Asia trip!
The second leg of our Asia trip took us to Korea (South). It's funny to me that most people in the U.S. refer to it as "South Korea," but Sce and her family just refer to the country as "Korea." It's almost as if they don't consider the North at all - Korea is simply half of its former size.
We had a shortish afternoon flight from Tokyo to Inchon (made famous during the Korean War by General Douglas MacArthur), and after hacking through customs, met the driver that Sce had arranged to pick us up and take us to the Ritz-Carlton Seoul (it sounds impressive, but it wasn't, really. We got a good rate, and Sce's employer was paying since she was working on this leg of the trip).
The cut text, by the way, comes from this goofy and disturbing video that played on our default TV channel in the hotel. It's a promotional video for Korea, and it featured a white guy in London (with an American accent) getting sucked into Korea through his cellphone. It features a lot of dancing, and a lot of somewhat forced lyrics. "Korea's IT" meant Information Technology and a bunch of other things that I don't remember now, but I still hear the song echoing in my nightmares.
We collapsed into our (extremely hard!) bed, and woke up in the morning planning our assault. Sce was scheduled to go to the Korea Electronics Show, and I was going to spend time hanging out with her parents, who were traveling to Asia at the same time. I met up with the folks and Sce's aunt who lives in a suburb of Seoul, and we took a trip to the Korean Folk Village, where people live and preserve the folk culture and customs for educational purposes.
The village was overrun with a multitude of school children, all of whom wore matching outfits and traveled in gigantic, dust-cloud-raising herds. I saw a few cool things at the folk village, and it was kind of cute how all the kids would start practicing their English on me as soon as they saw me.
A representative horde, settling in to watch some see-saw trampolining and a tightrope walker:
Myself and my in-laws, standing on a stone dam (pic taken by Sce's aunt):
These jars are where the various fermented pastes used in Korean cooking (both traditional and modern) are prepared. This is very close to the way it's been done for centuries; these are sealed using contemporary technologies, but the principle is the same. Very cool:
After the folk village, Sce's aunt had a previous engagement and dropped us off near a bus stop. We took the inter-city bus back to Seoul, to check out the famous shopping street Insadong. After some navigational fiddling, we did make it, and I did some preliminary gift-shopping for the family. While shopping, Sce called and let me know she was back from the Electronics Show. We caught a cab back to the hotel, and here's where my memory fails me a bit. I believe it was this night that we went to visit another of Sce's local relatives. They had laid on an amazing feast, and we enjoyed good company and interesting conversation for the remainder of the evening.
The next day, we woke up early and Sce's folks came to meet us at the hotel. We found some food around the corner, and then caught a cab to go see Changdeokgung Palace. While not the most famous palace in Seoul, Changdeokgung is the place that the last emperor of Korea lived in, up through the '80s (I believe). It features some stunning architecture - on a FAR larger scale than anything we saw in Japan - and acres of gorgeous, lush foliage dotted with pavilions and ponds called The Secret Garden. We had a lovely hike around the grounds, and then headed back to Insadong to get some tea.
The entry gate to Changdeokgung - A larger scale:
This is a really cool thing. It's a sundial of course, but the cool thing was that it was so overcast this day and the sun picked this moment to come out as the docent lady was showing us how it worked:
Probably my favorite picture from the whole series in Korea:
Attempting to navigate the Secret Garden:
We had some lovely cool tea at a second-floor tea house in Insadong, then wandered around checking out various wares and food items. We ended up grabbing a couple of snacks, some drinks, and sitting for a spell next to a stream that was reclaimed in the past couple of years from being paved over as a freeway:
We then bopped around the Namdaemun open air market, checking out the places that Sce's folks used to go to shop, and where they'd meet to sneak some private time when they were dating. That was quite nice, actually. We had food at various junctures, some substandard noodles, and some delicious BBQ beef. After that, we saw Namdaemun (the city gate that the market is named after):
We then made our way to a show that we thought was a traditional Korean dance/drumming show, but which turned out to be a far more contemporary creation.
Part 2b to follow.