Our Seoul and Tokyo Adventure: Day Eight

My parents had an end-of-the-year party to go to today, so Bob and I went into Seoul for the day. I took this photo from our express bus as we passed some of the oldest parts of Seoul, with traditional housing that contrasts so shockingly with the highrise culture of contemporary Seoul:

This statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin (known for his design of an especially effective warship in the sixteenth century) stands in the middle of a main road that bears the name of an even more famous Korean historical figure, King Sejong.

You've seen King Sejong already, perhaps without knowing it, because his face graces the 10,000 Won note that featured in yesterday's post. King Sejong is one of the most loved kings in Korean history, primarily because he created Hangul, the Korean script, during his fifteenth-century rule. Prior to King Sejong's creation of Hangul, only the elite classes could read and write, using Chinese-based characters. King Sejong wanted to create a Korean writing system that all classes could use, and with much opposition from the elite, Hangul was born. Often touted as one of the most logical alphabets in existence, Hangul characters impress linguists with their efficient use of phonetics as well as the fact that the shapes of the written characters represent the mouth and tongue configurations required to produce the sounds! Sounds crazy, I know, but apparently it's true. Compared with complex Chinese characters, Hangul is relatively easy to learn, and anyone can learn to pronounce Hangul with very little study (something that I can attest to, having only learned to read Hangul as a teenager). Before we visited Korea in 2006, and again before this trip, I told Bob that he should learn to read Hangul, but I think he's a bit sceptical about the ease with which I say it can be learned. Still, when it comes to things like the menu at today's lunch restaurant (in fact, it's the bill, but when you sit down, they just bring you the empty bill to fill out your own order), reading can be very useful!

I rattled off the menu options to Bob, but there were so many choices that he just stuck to his old favourite, bi bim bap, while I had dduk mandu gook (soup with ricecakes and dumplings) and we shared two orders of gim bap (large sushi rice rolls filled with a variety of cooked goodies).

In the end, it was a HUGE amount of food for lunch, even considering Bob's appetite, and the bill only came to 10,000 Won (CAD$10 or GBP£5) for both of us. Add in the fact that there's no tipping in Korea, and well, you can begin to see how much this trip has made us rediscover our resentment at London restaurant prices! After lunch, we headed to one of my favourite places in Seoul: Kyobo bookstore.

While I always enjoy browsing through the books, it's the stationery department that I usually end up spending most of my time marvelling over, since the selection is pretty spectacular.

Since this was my first time visiting Seoul in December, this was also my first experience with the absolute mania that seems to overtake everyone at this time of year: finding the perfect diary for the coming year.

With an overwhelming selection of designs, all at extremely affordable prices, looking at diaries and calendars (in Korea and Japan) made me wish that I could concoct some excuse to buy a dozen of the beautiful works of art. I resisted as best as I could, but still ended up returning to London with one notebook diary, one desktop calendar, and one wall calendar. After Kyobo, we wandered a bit, gravitating back to Myeongdong where we encountered two more offers of free hugs, this time from cutely costumed women:

(They held the signs in front of their faces when they saw me taking the photo, so I'm not sure how much of their getup was for effect and how much was for disguise!) We had returned to Myeongdong to wander, but also because one of the best shops that we found in 2006 had eluded us when we were here a few days ago. With my jumbled sense of direction, this didn't surprise me, but Bob seemed to take it as a personal affront that we somehow couldn't find the shop!

Finally, on the last narrow street of many, there it was, the charmingly named A Nature Takes a Hand:

Containing numerous levels of clothes for men and women, homewares, stationery, and just the kind of clutter that I like browsing through,

the shop had a new addition since last year--one that I wholeheartedly approve of!

We left Myeongdong and wandered some more, passing some of department store light displays along the way. My favourite of the lot was the Shinsegae "fountain":

It occurs to me that this travel "journal" isn't really giving you a balanced look at Seoul, since Bob and I have already done many of the touristy things in Korea's capital, like tour ancient palaces, walk along the old city wall, marvel at the historic gates that still punctuate the city, and experience the old-school marketplaces (the frenzy of which has to be seen to be believed). We very briefly visited one market tonight, although Namdaemun market was pretty quiet this evening, and slowed to a halt when it started to rain shortly after we entered the market.

As with Techno Mart, Namdaemun is either your vision of shoppers' paradise or hell, depending on your stamina and bargaining sense. There are separate areas to the market, each with its own focus, and you haven't seen selection until you've been in an entire building full of whatever category of item you can think of--decorative hair pins, camping equipment, dishes, socks, tools, you name it, you can buy it here. We stuck to the relatively tame outdoor market and passed many groups of people enjoying dinner and drinks at the food stalls along the way,

enough to remind us that it was past dinnertime for us too! But we weren't craving a rustic market experience for dinner, oh no, and we headed to the top floor of the Shinsegae department store (in Korea, as in Japan, the cheap eats are in the basement, and the fancier restaurants are on the top floors of any department store) in search of sushi. Bob had a zaru soba and sushi set,

while I really pigged out on a sushi, tempura, and udon noodle set. (I didn't end up needing the udon, and Bob happily polished off most of my noodles!)

Full and happy, we wandered toward our bus stop, passing Bosingak, the pavilion that holds a contemporary bell, cast in the 1970s, that represents the original 1396 bell that rang at 28 times every 10:00 P.M. (once for every solar stage of the zodiac) to signal the closing of the city walls, and 33 times at 4:00 A.M. (once for each of the Buddhist heavens) to signal the opening of the walls. Nowadays, it's only rung on New Year's Eve, keeping the 33-ring tradition to signal the beginning of a new year--we wouldn't see or hear this event in person this coming New Year's Eve, but we'd still watch it on television from my parents' living room!