Minutiae

Today was a day of minutiae. I saw many things and learned a lot about life in Korea.

Here is a pic of the nearly empty subway. Imagine it packed completely full during rush hour, add a lot of noise and shoving, and you’ll get close to the craziness of it.

The day started off grey, but then turned pleasant after the sun came out. It seems like winter’s almost over.

Here comes the sun

Jongmyo Park was tiny and full of birds. There was also a cluster of benches for the ajeossis to gather for the playing of baduk, a board game.

Two benches laid out for a game

Birds! More wildlife than I've seen in Seoul thus far

The moving, cheeping bush!

Two ajeossis concentrating. I think the one on the right was winning.

I went to another market, Kwangjang Market, which was a short walk away. It seemed to be mostly textile stores and food vendors, but it’s possible that I missed whole sections of it.

An entire shop full of blue cloth

Rolls of fabric

Blankets ready to be sold

Tofu imprinted with symbols

I think a prerequisite for making it into the garland is a gaping mouth

Piles of red pepper powder

More fabric

Children's hanbok, or traditional Korean dress

A nice husband/wife combo

Fried kimchi pancakes

I ate lunch at a stall specializing in Kalguksu, freshly cut noodles in a broth. There was a couple also eating there, and the wife spoke English, telling me, "Famous. Radio and television." There was a sort of photo wall showing the stall on television, so I suppose it was true. The noodles were award-worthy.

The lady hand-cut the noodles on the spot, and continued rolling out dough as I ate

Zucchini and carrots and mandu for the soup. The tea was self-serve

Mmm. With seaweed sprinkles on top.

Chopsticks are exponentially harder to use if your fingers are cold.

I captured many small details with my camera, so now I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking.

The first Korean flag I noticed.
After that, I saw at least half a dozen more throughout the day.

All the stores have roll down covers. All of them have at least a few stripes of color.

The juxtaposition of the well-maintained temple
and run down houses reminded me a bit of China

This mongrel was very friendly, but I hesitated to pet
him as he looked filthy.

Some ajumma had set out a bowl of cabbage in salt,
the first step of the kimchi making process

This is a Korean boquet, set out in either celebration or mourning

A motorcyclist, an ajumma with a food delivery balanced on her head,
and a schoolboy waiting to cross the street

I absolutely adore Korean street art. The neighborhood on the way to Naksan Park seemed to have more of it than most areas.

At the park, which was at the top of a mountain, there were several lookout points, some exercise equipment, and a longer section of the wall around Seoul that connects to the gate I saw yesterday.

Working my quads on the leg extension machine

Sitting on the wall enjoying the view.
You can see the wall continuing on behind me.

Housing district; a shabbier part of Seoul

Kids playing one of Korea's favorite sports

Laundry hanging in the rundown part of the city

This light pole was so rusty it looked diseased
but was still playing a jovial tune from a loudspeaker.
This was a common feature of the light poles.

I then found a market dedicated to children's toys. It must be heaven for small children and hell for their parents. I saw several mothers trying to keep up with their children who were ogling the goods.

Toys galore

How is it possible for a clock to be so cute?

I came back to a stream running through Seoul. It may or may not have been the same one I saw a few days ago. The stream ran through the fashion district and near the old olympic stadium. The stadium was being dismantled in favor of the Dongdaemun Cultural Park which included a Stadium memorial. There was a film crew there. Though I couldn't find out what they were filming, they had blocked of a section of the park for their use.

Mural on the pathway next to the stream

The stadium with the new park in the foreground

Part of the fashion district

On the way to the subway station, there was a police academy whose trainees were engaging in PT.

A fleet of police buses

I think they were doing burpees

Changdeok Palace and the Blue House

I met up with Justin and Tim today. They are two other exchange students from UT who are also staying in the Sejong Inn. I woke them up at 9:30 to say hi, and we decided to go explore the city together. After looking through Tim’s guidebook, we selected Changdeok Palace as our destination.

One of the inner buildings

Walkway to the garden

We arrived just in time for the 11:30 tour of the Biwon(Secret) Garden.

Our lovely tour guide with adorably accented Engrish

Square pond represents the earch, circular island represents the sky

The royal library, emptied during the Japanese occupation

One of the numerous gates

A pagoda with my traveling companions, Justin(left) and Tim(right)

This house had a large and a small door. Guess which one was for the women?

The intricacy of the ceiling was astounding

A cluster of pagodas

The only pagoda with a thatch roof, surrounded by a rice paddy that would have
been tended by the king himself to symbolize his support for agriculture

A row of pots between the palace and the urbanized surroundings

The tour lasted almost two hours, and we explored the outer palace for a while before heading to lunch.

Protective figurines on the roof

Courtyard and inner throne room

View of the courtyard

Painted eaves

Another gate

The complex was enormous!

Setting off in a random direction, we stumbled across a kimbap place. Kimbap is basically sushi with egg, spam, and veggie filling. I got some delicious kimchi jjigae, a stew made of fermented cabbage.

mmm. The side dishes(banchan) from left to right:
Yongeun Jorim(sauteed lotus root), potato slices, kimchi

Afterwards, we kept wandering through the neighborhood.

A gorgeous mural

Happy graffiti!

When I caught sight of a mountain in the not-so-far distance, I knew I had to try to climb it. Justin and Tim made no protest, so we steered in that direction.

Pretty soon, we walked up a street and were stopped by a guard who told us, “Wait a minute” in rather good English. Turns out we had come across the Blue House, home of Korea’s ruling elite. My best guess is that there was an important dignitary arriving, and they didn’t want to let us innocent westerners, possibly hiding weapons under our coats, get anywhere near the guy. The blue house was situated at the foot of the mountain we had set out to climb, and had ridiculous security. There was a tall fence with rolls of razor wire on top, regular patrols inside the enclosure, watch stations, and numerous guards at every entrance.

A guard motioning not to take pictures. Oops.

One of the Blue House buildings
with the elusive mountain in the background

We carried on, saw a cool fountain, and came across a map that outlined no clear path to the top.

Phoenix fountain, currently turned off

Neat view of Seoul

Eventually we reached the apex of the road we were on, where there was an old gate, part of what I think was a wall around Seoul.

The gate

Here you can see the fence and wire
At the top of the stairs were guards that prevented us from going any farther,
saying, "no time."

Going down the other side of the mountain, we got on a bus using our Tmoney cards; you can use them for all sorts of transportation and even making calls. We got off at a subway station, and made our way back to the hotel.

A mural on the wall of one of many chicken and beer restaurants

We only serve happy chickens!

Tmoney card

My first bus!

Later that evening, I set out alone to attend mass for Ash Wednesday. The church was packed full, and I found a seat next to a nice old man who helped me follow along during songs. I was actually able to sing along to the slower songs. I guess I’m getting decent at reading Korean. The cathedral was huge and really echoed with the sound of so many people praying in unison. I wasn’t able to get any pictures, since the mass started right after I got there, and let out two minutes before the next one was supposed to start.

The line of people waiting to get into the church
(Sorry for the horrible quality)

I then walked through Myeongdong for the first time at night. It was very crowded and noisy. I found a food stand and got some ddeokbokki, fried rice and fish cakes in a spicy sauce, to go and ate it in my hotel room.

Myeongdong at night

Ddeokbokki wrapped up to go, and eaten with a toothpick