We have been in Seoul since October 1st and on the 25th of November it will be time for us to leave again. Time has flown by here as we enjoyed Seoul SO much! There are fall colors, cool temperatures, welcoming people, history galore, good food, coffee on every corner and the highlight for us was getting to know Yesul and her family. There is so much to do in the city of Seoul that we chose to stay in the city for the entire two months. We plan to come back to South Korea and see the rest of this beautiful country in the future. Tim and I have become used to the stares, mostly from young children, as we pass. I delight in talking with these children and their parents as they are very open to speaking English with us. We had a good laugh when one young boy, about 8 or 9 years old, came walking right in front of the exhibit we were viewing in the National Museum of Korea. He drifted in front of us, his back entirely to the 1000 year history art work directly behind him, as he stared up at Tim. I burst out laughing as I had just seen him grab his dad and point at Tim a moment earlier, like Tim was the exhibit. You might think we would feel uncomfortable turning heads like we do, but in truth, we have had SO much fun with the many interactions that have resulted. It is refreshing when a busy city is not tired of tourists.
The South Korean people have a well documented history and it is preserved in their museums. They seem to take great pride in their history, with many wonderful museums, palaces, and historical performances. There are books written from the times of the Joseon Dynasty, notating every action the kings did daily. I asked if they were transcribed into other languages yet and was told this is in process.
We happened upon a reenactment, with music, of life at Changdeokgung Palace. This was the “secret garden” area of the palace.
More scenes from Gyeongbokgung Palace and Gardens. In all, Seoul has five major palaces and we were able to view all of them, including English tours at two of them. We also found an execellent English guider tour at one tour of the history museums. Deb and I had the tour guide all to ourselves for a couple of hours, and got a wonderful lesson.
Changdeokgung Palace Pavillion
The Joseon kings believed that animals helped guard and protect people. The more animals on top of a the edge of a palace roof signified the status level of the building. There’s always an odd number, ranging up to 11. The characters are from a Chinese story, “Journey to the West”.
Deoksogung Palace Grounds
A fun thing to do while in Seoul is to rent a traditional Hanbok and go to the palace for photos. Deb talked Tim into going with her and we enjoyed it.
As we mentioned earlier, we were invited to spend an evening with Yesul and her family. Here are some photos of our time together. They took us to the border with North Korea, to an art village for coffee, they cooked an amazing breakfast for us, and provided a warm welcoming place to us! Yesul’s aunt helped us immensely with translating as she and Yesul both speak English really well.
Yesul’s parents, Tae and Jun, and our delightful curry breakfast. We could not ask for more welcoming, kind people to be introduced to South Korea! Even though our languages were different, we found out through charades and the help of Yesul and her aunt, that we have much more in common than are different. Mainly our shared love of Yesul was what brought us together, but their smiles and actions will be what we remember for years to come. We can’t wait to host them some day in America!
Yesul’s father, Tae, driving, Yesul’s aunt, Sung is behind Tim and sitting on her little sister’s lap. Back seat left to right is Yesul’s mom, Jun, Yesul and me
Looking across to North Korea. The demilitarized zone doesn’t start for a couple more kilometers, but only residents are allowed across.
Old train from the Korean war, showing the destruction of the time. We were told that roughly half of all houses in South Korea were destroyed, along with about 40% of the industry. It’s amazing how quickly they have been able to rebuild.
Yesul in a field of her favorite flowers
This is what happens when you put in a pin in Google maps!
North Korean border. At this point Northwest of Seoul, North Korea is just across the river.
Remembrance at North Korean border
One more lovely story of South Korea. I was walking around the Gyeongbokgung Palace one day when a gentleman, perhaps 85 years young, approached me and asked where I was from. We got to talking and he was so happy to tell me a bit about the buildings around us and the functions they were used for. At the conclusion of our chat, he says “Please tell your people when you go back to the US how MUCH we appreciated their stepping in to help us in the Korean War! I remember when we were invaded.”
And a few additions from Tim, as Deb did the bulk of this post:
I wanted to show a few more of the fun sights of Seoul. Seoul is a very walkable city, with excellent public transportation. Riding the bus/subway most anywhere costs us a little more than a dollar. And Seoul has many hundreds, if not thousands, of small winding streets- filled with restaurants, coffee shops, clothing stores, bakeries, etc. One day we found an artisanal shop that makes hand made ice cream. Would you believe that pepper ice cream is delicious? What seems to be missing are the big box retailers that we are used to in the US. There are some large malls, but so many of the stores are just a few hundred square feet. (~50sq m) Although there is plenty of car traffic, the city seems geared to walkers instead of drivers. And fun sights are everywhere. One fun thing is the variety of vehicles- including minivans not much larger than Deb’s Mini Cooper. And electric vehicles used to deliver milk, or collect recycling, etc. You can see one in the advertisement below, followed by the real thing. The second one was driven by a lady who traveled down our restaurant row, and set up shop selling food at the end of the street each day.
Followed by it’s slightly larger delivery truck brethren.
And, one last temple- but Buddhist this time. We ran across this as we were hiking one day, looked it up later and found it was called Bongwonsa temple. We had it mostly to ourselves.
Along our walks we ran across much decorative artwork. The large hand below is terrifying the small creature seen in the second photo. (you can see the reflection of the second creature if you look closely at the forefinger tip)
One thing we’ve noticed on most of our hikes is stops every now and then with exercise equipment. All different types, for stretching and aerobics. We’ve had fun trying some of it out.
We went with Yesul to the National Gugak Center, which is dedicated to traditional Korean music and performance. We attended a concert of traditional Korean music, ranging from a large orchestra group of around 30 performers, to a couple of performers accompanying a traditional dancer. This is done in an intimate theater, seating perhaps 400 people. We enjoyed it so much, we went back to a second theater performance, “The Man in Red”. At the end of the first event, they allowed photography for the last minute of the show. Deb got the image below of four performers on a small secondary stage right next to us. The main stage was being used by dancers. The photo below that shows the main stage, along with a middle sized orchestra. (image was taken from the Gugak website, http://www.gugak.go.kr)
One last piece of artwork, with Deb included.
And a final shot of Korean nightlife. We’re going to miss Korea, will have to return again. But next week, on to Cambodia followed by Vietnam. We’re looking forward to our boat cruise down the Mekong river, hope we can manage the heat ok!
