Korea! (Both of 'em!)

Departure

So, these are photos and text about my trip to the Koreas using my annual leave for spring break. I went over and hung out with my friend Mari (don't let her fool you into writing “Mary” by flashing fancy-pants birth certificates in your face) Borovicka in Seoul and thereabouts, mostly eating, looking at objets d'art, and talking about how in Korea they do it like this, but in Japan they do it like thiiis. So, anyway, here's how it started:

DSC06326.JPG I left from Komatsu Airport
DSC06329.JPG on an airplane
DSC06337.JPG with passengers.


Pretty exciting, eh?

 
Food!

In my experience, the first thing people ask about when you get back from a foreign country is, “How was the food?” To that end, this collection begins with a photomontage of things I ate or, at least, could have eaten had I been so inclined. The key difference between Japanese cooking and Korean is that Japanese food is meant to be seen and Korean food is meant to overload your mouth with flavor, or failing that spice. I agree with the Wikitravel's assertion that it, “would take a determined man to starve to death in Seoul….” The food is crammed with flavor and sold on every street corner. So, if you're hungry and in East Asia, I recommend South Korea.

DSC06339.JPG Waffle House: A Great Omen!
DSC06338.JPG Weird Korean fruit.
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DSC06342.JPG They use metal chopsticks in Korea. The Japanese find this terminally weird.
DSC06346.JPG An old-fangled vending machine.
DSC06357.JPG To me, Pocari Sweat is a familiar, reassuring sight.
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DSC06405.JPG "Stop thinking. Feel it!" Japan's old slogan was, "No Reason!" Coke doesn't seem big on thought.
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DSC06601.JPG Korea is totally a "Pepsi country."
DSC06428.JPG Chinese dumplings.
DSC06446.JPG Cake!
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DSC06538.JPG Bugs!
DSC06571.JPG I didn't eat those actually.
DSC06572.JPG Or these.
DSC06574.JPG But I ate this rice and beef stuff.
DSC06575.JPG Plus some kimchee.
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DSC06701.JPG Before I came, Dan had talked up Dunkin' Donuts. I tried some at the airport before going back. Not bad.
 
Signs, signs, everywhere, &c.

South Korea seems to have even more funkily translated or otherwise amusingly emotional signs than Japan, a feat which I find oddly impressive. Here are some of the stand outs, including a couple where I show off and pretend to read Japanese.

DSC06352.JPG "The Korean always eat Dog soup?! HaHaHa~" That's pretty much classic.
DSC06399.JPG For some reason, Korea refuses to say "Entrance"
DSC06343.JPG or "Exit." They're too busy being funky, I suppose.
DSC06420.JPG In case of gas attack, here's the plan.
DSC06361.JPG Signs in Korea tend to inject editorial comments into things. "…destroyed by Japan's wicked policy of aggression."
DSC06457.JPG "…under repressive Japanese colonial rule…"
DSC06511.JPG "Hearbreaking divided land of Korea."
DSC06517.JPG "The Korean War is not completed and remains unsolved."
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DSC06516.JPG Old North Korean propaganda: "She's Happy… because her husband is a POW—and no longer risking his life."
DSC06559.JPG A poster telling me to sign up for my job.
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DSC06595.JPG Online games are really popular in Korea.
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DSC06603.JPG Sorrow! The Great Korean Empire's Imperial Family's Hallowed Resting Ground. Mourn!
DSC06598.JPG Shame. They used a Chinese font for a Japanese sign.
DSC06636.JPG Japanese typo. They wrote "sannnglasses" instead of "sunglasses." Someone noticed and put a small X on it.
DSC06689.JPG Another Japanese typo. They keep writing ソ 'so' for ン 'n.'
 
Folk

Ok, so here's what my host for the trip looked like. Also, here's a picture of the subway that I couldn't find a better category for.

DSC06345.JPG Mari's sinister look.
DSC06351.JPG Chilling in a cafe.
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景福宮 (Gyeongbokgung), Scenery of Luck Palace

Here's the first place I went on my own. I first checked out the museum, which explained a bit about all the royal people and what they were into, then wandered around the palace grounds. These palaces are pretty big. I'm used to Japanese temple compounds, where there are usually just four buildings laid out close together. Here, there are a ton different rooms to hold all the different royal hangers on.

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DSC06371.JPG These are characters from the "Journey West" story.
DSC06374.JPG Fake beard.
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DSC06379.JPG This picture represents the Imperial family somehow.
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DSC06390.JPG It was kind of drizzly my whole first day.
DSC06413.JPG Check out the crane.
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National Folk Museum of Korea

This museum was pretty cool. They had some pottery and such and explained about the Korean alphabet using painfully amateurishly translated English. I think you might have been supposed to pay, but I was never asked to, perhaps because I used the children's museum side entrance.

DSC06406.JPG National Folk Museum of Korea
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DSC06407.JPG Zodiac statues.
DSC06410.JPG I'm Year of the Dog.
 
City Center
DSC06421.JPG City Hall.
DSC06425.JPG Protesters.

South Korea seems to have a lot of protesters downtown at any given time. I'm not really sure why, but I always saw someone downtown being mad about something. Also, the police have wicked looking riot gear. It makes you remember that democracy in South Korea is still pretty new.

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DSC06429.JPG The river downtown.
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DSC06447.JPG Chongno Tower.
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DSC06445.JPG These people were moving around on the roof of another skyscraper. That seems dumb.
 
Korean Museums

I spent a lot of time in South Korea looking at art in museums, and particularly celadon pottery, since one of my co-working teachers read some sort of Newberry winning book written in English about pottery in Korea and sent me on a mission to learn more. My conclusion? It's green and more technically perfect than Japanese pottery, which is more about adding soul through imperfections.

DSC06448.JPG Korean National Museum.
DSC06335.JPG Korea is known for its celadon pottery.
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DSC06475.JPG These two guys are actually Japanese haniwa.
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War Memorial

The trick of the War Memorial is that it's not a memorial to the Korean War, but to Korean war in general, going back thousands of years. Of course, the Korean War gets biggest mention, but they also have long sections about ancient clashes with the Japanese and more recent peacekeeping missions in the Middle East. It will take you a while to just physically move through the museum, and after a while, you may have the urge to go quickly through the rooms and hurry on to the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Center on the other side of town, but then you miss the opening of the show anyway.

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DSC06508.JPG These guys were all photographing this girl by the War Memorial. No idea why.
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DSC06521.JPG Center for Traditional Performing Arts.
 
Yongsan's “Space Nine” Mall

They have a lot of Western restaurants and an electronics flea market here, if you're into that sort of thing. If you want, you could spend all day just riding the escalators up and down there.

DSC06486.JPG We spent a while in the mall at Yongsan.
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Tapgol Park

I think that this park is semi-important in the history of Korea's independence movement during the Japan years. Mostly though, it's just a park with pretty things to look at.

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DSC06534.JPG They like to keep their pagodas in doors in Korea, I guess.
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仁寺洞 (Insa-dong) art district and elsewhere

The Insa-dong area is pretty fun. They have a lot of touristy shops where you can buy gifts to send back home, or just give to your coworkers out of a sense of social obligation, as the case may be. There are also a lot of little galleries where you can see people's art projects on display. Cool, cool.

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DSC06554.JPG I thought these were really well painted.
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DSC06557.JPG Russians jamming out.
DSC06562.JPG This building was weird.
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DSC06587.JPG Grafitti.
 
孝昌 (Hyo-chang) park

This park is by Mari's school. It's pretty cool. It has an anti-Communist monument that she says single handedly turned her away from Bolshevism. Not bad at all. Also, they have a lot of free exercise equipment for old people to take advantage of.

DSC06588.JPG Anti-communist monument.
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DSC06592.JPG This turned out to be really painful.
DSC06579.JPG City at night and Seoul Tower
 
昌慶宮 (Changgyeonggung) and 宗廟(Jong-myo)

This palace complex is actually two palaces connected by an overpass for pedestrians. It's even bigger than the first one I went to. It just keeps on going, and you can start to feel lost after a while. It looks pretty cool though. At one part, I heard a Japanese tour guide woman telling some people, "This stone path is the holy route used by the King. I don't step on it, 'cos it's scary." I laughed, because I just finished walking all the way across the it. Later, I hit my head. Coincidence? Almost certainly.

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DSC06599.JPG "All that junk? Oh, just pile it by the gate to the imperial palace. Yeah, it's cool. No one uses that gate anyway."
DSC06602.JPG Museum of Korean Art? → Closed.
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DSC06632.JPG Botanical garden.
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Back to the city
DSC06637.JPG Namdaemun (Great Southern Gate).
DSC06638.JPG Bank o' Korea.
DSC06641.JPG Dongdaemun (Great Eastern Gate).
DSC06640.JPG This Burger King ad is a phony, all right, but a real phony.
 
Democratic People's Republic of Korea

OK, so apparently due to the “Sunshine Policy” and whatnot, it is now possible to take tours of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Not only that, but it's possible to go to a Joint Security Area (JSA) in the DMZ that's controlled by UN nations together with North Korea. Not only that, but it's also possible to go to the North Korean side of the DMZ line, putting you a solid 5 feet into actual, factual North Korea. Mari and I did this. It was awesometacular. The guides do a lot to scare you into not making the North Koreans mad. It's probably partly for show, but it's also partly true, that they could shoot you, and the diplomats would just smooth it over and bribe your family to stop a war.

DSC06647.JPG Flags of the nations in the Korean War.
DSC06649.JPG North Korean propaganda village, with a ginormous flag.
DSC06653.JPG North Korean observation post.
DSC06654.JPG Me in front of the DPRK.
DSC06655.JPG "What me, have nuclear weapons?"
DSC06656.JPG Guards marching up the hill.
DSC06663.JPG The concrete line is the divider between North and South. I'm on the North side!
DSC06658.JPG In with a NK guard.
DSC06660.JPG He's there "for our protection."
DSC06662.JPG As close to communism as I've been.
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DSC06678.JPG There used to be some trees here blocking the view of the blue guard house. So one day, the South Koreans went to cut them down.
DSC06685.JPG They were brutally axe murdered. Here's their commemorative plaque.
 
Karaoke

After North Korea, we hit up karaoke with some of Mari's friends. It wasn't as good as a real Japanese karaoke box in terms of song selection, but it was fun to hear people sing in Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean.

DSC06691.JPG Bustlin' Seoul at night.
DSC06690.JPG Kimo checks her specs.
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DSC06694.JPG Japanese, Chinese, and Americans in a Korean karaoke box, breaking it down.
 
Departure
DSC06702.JPG And homeward again.

With the trip over, and after ever-so-barely managing to not quite oversleep getting to my flight the recommended time ahead of departure, I took the bus from Komatsu Airport to Komatsu Station and the local train back to my apartment. Approximate total travel time: 6 hours, door-to-door. It was a fun week. Rock on, Koreas.