Korea Day 4

My final day in Korea began too early but without a hangover which was a big plus, although I think I was still a bit drunk. The vodka of the night before had been joined by tequila and they worked hand in hand to stave off hangover.

Which was rather fortunate as I went with my friend HyeJung to see Nanta, a Korean cooking musical comedy show about 3 chefs and newly installed manager’s son preparing e a banquet in time for the royal wedding. A simple premise but a great show, it’s main theme is traditional Korean music, which is mainly rhythmic, but improvised on kitchen utensils and so on. It also has some fart jokes, pantomime audience participation and magic tricks. If it shows anywhere near you I highly recommend it.

In Starbucks after Nanta.

After that I wandered around Myeongdong with my former housemate YuJin who had fortunately moved back to Korea for a month just in time to show me around. Cheap clothes, a nice fountain being cleaned and some tasty food and then to see some fountains from the side of a big bridge.

After that it was time to get back to the hostel, pack my back and work out how to get to the airport for an 8am flight the next day, which was thankfully accomplished with the aid of the 3am night-bus. And then finally back to Japan.

 

Incheon airport at 7am.

Korea Day 3

Today I spent the day with Hyejung and Beth who very kindly showed me around Seoul. First was a trip to the national museum to see lots of old pottery and a very nice pagoda.

Next we wandered around the shopping areas and visited a Buddhist temple which had a lot of paper lanterns on the ceiling.

Then we went to an awesome restaurant called “Meat-ing” which is an all you can eat Korean style barbeque meat buffet, where I ate much to much meat.

And finally in the evening we went out to a bar/club where I drank much to much vodka, which wasn’t as forgiving as the meat.

Korea day 2 (DMZ Trip)

Today I got to hang out with my North Korean buddies! They are a charming lot, that’s for sure.

So a quick history in case you can’t quite remember what the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) is. The story goes like this: at the start of the 20th century Japan decides it wants and empire like all its Western buddies and so start attacking everywhere decides it doesn’t like Chinese influence in Korea, supports some revolting peasants, gets some troops in there to put down revolting peasants when the wrong ones start revolting, fights the Russians a bit, assassinates the Korean Princess, forces Korean annexation from China, fights the Russians again and ends up as the main power in Korea. They keep control from 1910 until 1945 when the Japanese are slightly blown up and forced to surrender at the end of WWII. A few months earlier the Soviets had declared war on Japan in agreement with the Allies and marched down Korea to roughly where the current division is (as agreed), anything further south would be under American control. Two governments are effectively installed, the northern one supported by the Soviets and Chinese the southern one by the Americans and allies. There is rather a lot of fighting (5 million dead a lot) and uprisings up and down the country mostly as a proxy war but the eventual dividing line is essentially decided upon by the Americans and Chinese and Soviets as an acceptable place to have a buffer zone between the communist countries and the capitalist ones. And so they build a big fence that runs right across the country 250km long and effectively separates the capitalist states from the Soviet and Communist block. Except that communism has mostly fallen and North Korea didn’t get the memo. The two Koreas are still technically at war with only a temporary ceasefire having been agreed so either side could “legally” attack at any time.

Anyway, that’s where I went today.

 

Freedom Bridge looking into North Korea was used to exchange POWs.

 

There are lots of mines everywhere. These happen to be by the 3rd Tunnel. The 3rd Tunnel was the 3rd of 4 tunnels discovered being dug by North Korea into the south, all in the direction of Seoul. When the South Koreans discovered and dug down to the tunnel and questioned what was going on North Korea first denied having dug it, despite the entrance being on the North Korean side and water draining out to the North, and the holes for dynamite pointing towards the South. Then when asked again they said they were mining for coal and had got lost, despite the rock being solid granite with no possibility of coal being present. To bolster their claim they painted the walls of the tunnel black and said it was coal.

 

There be North Korea. And there be the flag. You can see that all the mountains in North Korea are basically bare with no woodland around. This is because the North Koreans have cut the trees down firstly use use as fuel and secondly to prevent spies from the South hiding in the hills. The flag there is the 3rd tallest in the world. The two Koreas kept competing with each other to build a taller flag on each side of the border until the South gave up leaving the 160m tall flag of North Korea the clear winner.

The JSA (Joint Security Area) is the only part of the DMZ where troops from either side directly face each other. The South Korean soldiers stand half hidden by the buildings so that they offer a smaller target to the North and so that they can give secret signals to the South. Also a North Korean soldier checking us out with his binoculars while we take photographs of him.

Inside one of the blue huts, used for meetings between diplomats. The microphones down the middle of the table mark the dividing line between North and South Korea (South to the left North to the right). Me hanging with a South Korean soldier in the North Korean side of the hut. Since both sides use the huts for tours, use of the huts runs on a first come first server basis with the South Koreans not allowed in while the North Koreans are inside and vice versa.

I wonder if he plays much Playstation over there.

Korea Day 1 (actually day 2 because I slept on day one after getting to the hostel and being really tired).

During the school summer holiday I thought I’d take a holiday and visit Seoul in Korea for a few days.

Day 1 was to see the main tourist sites around Seoul such as the palaces, which are nice and big and impressive. They also have some people in traditional costume wandering around looking very cool.

Inside is a rather impressive mechanical bow thing which can fire 100 odd bolts all at once by using gunpowder. Further along is a big statue of King Sejong who created the Hangul alphabet that is still used today. It’s really easy to learn being entirely phonetic and only having 24 characters. He made it so that even the common people would be able to read and write easily instead of having to rely on Chinese characters or hanja. So that was pretty good of him.

Then in the evening I went to the big tower in the centre of Seoul which has a great view all around and also the best view of any toilet I’ve ever used.