Tripping With Toby: Seoul, S. Korea

October 19, 2019- Seoul, S. Korea

We lost a day of our lives traveling to Korea, but regain it coming home. Sorry we can’t give you any hints of the future. It just doesn’t work that way.

With the help of our little pal, Ambien, we slept through the night. It’s a no-brainer when we’ve flown to a time zone 13 hours different than ours.

Breakfast gave us the opportunity to learn how to use yet another coffee machine. I also learned that not every Caucasian in Korea speaks English. In an attempt to be helpful, I explained the mystery of the two spigots on the coffee maker only to get a polite smile and nod as he did what he pleased.

Most mornings start with a lecture. Today’s teacher was a PhD candidate from Michigan. She became interested in the language then the culture in middle school when she couldn’t understand her friends who were Korean twin sisters. As a paranoid middle-schooler, she thought they were talking about her when they lapsed into Korean.

Korea is flanked on three sides by the sea and is 70% mountains. Their dynasties were more stable than Japan’s or China’s so geographical pockets of culture developed and thrived for centuries. Japan colonized the peninsula from 1910-1945, and only left after WWII. Enter the USA and Russia in 1950, creating what was supposed to be a temporary division between north and south. When unification was tried in 1948, war broke out. Cessation of the war brought an authoritarian government to the south where rebuilding became a reality. The late 80’s to early 90’s saw the advent of open elections and democracy.

Shamanism is the only religion native to Korea. It is rarely practiced, although people may weave some of its rituals and beliefs into contemporary religions. Confucianism arrived in the first century BCE, while Buddhism came in the fourth century. Christianity made its way here by way of Jesuits from China. Koreans were quite opposed to a religion that conflicted so radically with Confucianism, especially regarding ancestor worship. They either drove the Jesuits out or killed them. In the nineteenth century, Protestants were more kindly welcomed since they brought western education and medicine with them. Today Christianity is the most widely practiced religion in S. Korea.

After the lecture, we boarded what I refer to as our bordello bus, passed a Krispy Kreme, and headed for the National Museum. Exhibits ranged from Paleolithic to celadon ceramic ware. It was a lovely building, but our guide, Jinny, herded us through at a fast pace.

Speaking of Jinny, her accent is wearing on the group. People are starting to zone out because we can’t understand her and some are getting irritable. Korean words frequently have optional suffixes. She attaches that to English words along with the common replacement of the “L” for “R.” For example, it took a bit to realize that “loofehs ” were roofs. I couldn’t understand why Paris was so important until I guessed we were going to visit the Palace. When explaining about kings and concubines, she frequently mentioned that the king was impotent. That confused me as to how the dynasties were sustained. In reality, the group consensus was that the kings were all “important.” Sometimes her answers to questions fall short or are misleading due to language. David asked if there was a lot of walking at the Palace. She said that we were taking the bus. David didn’t take his hiking poles. There was tons of walking on uneven surfaces and steps with no railing. She must have thought he asked if we were walking “to” the Palace. Some responses are funny like when she told us we could recognize our hotel by the blue bow. We were all confused until she pointed to a blue statue of a man bowing. Aside from being hard to understand, she seems set in her ways. Several people asked about an ATM to change money. Jinny was vague at best and preferred what sounded like currency exchanges. Her concern turned out to be the service charge we’d have to pay at the machine. There was actually an ATM in our hotel. No one cared about the fee.

In the end, the Palace, a UNESCO site, looked like a smaller version of the Forbidden City in China only lots cleaner. In fact, judging by Seoul, Korea is very clean and pretty much litter free. The Secret Garden of the Palace consisted of sand paths, pagodas, greenery, and no flowers. Color was provided by local tourists who rented traditional Korean costumes and re-enactors. Because Koreans built with wood and heated with wood or charcoal burners under the floors, most historic buildings aren’t original. Duh, wooden buildings burn.

Lunch was billed as an authentic cultural experience. We had a reservation, but people were lined up to eat the famous chicken soup. Whole disemboweled chicken stuffed with rice is cooked in and served in a clay pot. The result was disappointing. It was tasteless, the rice had become pasty, and the poor bird was more bones than meat. I think we all left hungry.

Most people were too tired for dinner, but we got together with Audrey from Manhattan, and, with Jinny, we walked a few blocks to a happening street market where we had dinner on the hoof. Jinny escorted us there, cautioned us not to eat meat, and turned us loose. She does want to be helpful. I loved the egg bread. It’s a thick sweet slice of baguette with a fried egg on top. The red bean pancake was yum. David wasn’t happy with his kim chee omelet but liked his cup of sweetened potatoes. There was a variety of fish, eel, and shellfish offerings along with dumplings. I laughed at the Oreo churros and cringed at the seaweed stuffed with Choices of Velveeta or Spam. I kid you not. We were lured to a cart by two men singing a jingle in English as they stretched a honey and flour mixture into paper thin strands, filled it with chopped chocolate, and rolled it into candy. I admit that I initially thought they were singing “lowly,lowly,lowly” until I watched what they were doing and realized they were saying “rolly, rolly .”

We found the blue bow and our hotel in time to get to bed on the early side. Tomorrow we continue touring Seoul.

Toby