Only one update this week. Sergey's back online! Although a bit confusingly, even though he has been India a month now, his first picture entry is from Beijing and its environs.
Back to Korea. After we had exhausted our share of bugs and snails, we decided we needed to take a little gander. The weather was nice (low 60s - relevant later), so Andrew suggested we stroll down Cheonggyecheon. Of course the boyz had no idea what that was, but I had gone there with a mom two years before, and agreed it was the bestest of ideas.
Cheonggyecheon is a stream or creek that runs into the Han River. It is smack in the middle of Old Town Seoul, however, so like most things in the central city, it had long been covered up and treated like a de factor sewer. Sort of like an "LA river." As South Korea got richer and Seoul got most cosmopolitan, however, the masses demanded green space, and so as a part of a downtown reclamation, they uncovered the stream and made it an artificial park. It's sort of strange because it is below street level in the median of one of the busiest streets in Seoul, but once you enter, you appreciate the subterraneanness because it masks a surprising amount of city sounds.
So with that background, we descended into the middle of this 5.2 mile-long urban oasis.
Nice aye? The skyscrapers surrounding it actually add the ambiance.
The boyz are excited. Especially Dave. Behind them are tiles depicting different royal processions.
Sort of an artsy waterfall shot. I am pretty sure John took this.
Our first sighting of a Korean in traditional garb! He is one of many tour guides/hosts along the stream. I think he was explaining something historical to Dave, who was doing a good impression of someone who understands what he was saying.
I had some friends in law school who said they had never left the five boroughs of NYC. I am sure they were exaggerating (at least the Hamptons, right), but then this kid looks like he has lived in the concrete jungle all of his life, and so is fascinated by this quasi-nature.
Crossing on the rocks was inordinately popular, as this father-daughter combo shows. There definitely would have been signs all over the place, if we were in the U.S., warning us to stay off the rocks, but Korea takes a different take on personal injury law, i.e., it doesn't exist.
I'm guessing newlyweds before he dunks his bride? Ha.
When in Seoul, Eric does as the Seoulites do.
We got to an end of the stream, with its cool waterfall and strangely Christmas tree like spiral in the distance, we noticed some strange music emanating in the distance.
As we got to the top of the stairs, we ran into this...
... and as you can imagine, it was very confusing, especially since everyone was so well dressed, even for Seoul.
When I was in undergrad, I was walking to class across Killian Court when I noticed about 100 very good looking people dressed in nice clothes and long trench coat jackets. Now, as most of us students were smelly engineers who lived in jeans and sweats (yours truly definitely included), I immediately did a double take. Then, as if on cue, all the people started running toward the Great Dome. Curious as to what was going on, I did also. All of sudden, I hear "cut, cut, cut." I look, and spot Gus Van Sant behind a camera staring straight at me. I didn't know it at the time, but I had inadvertently walked onto a b-roll scene from Good Will Hunting. It's after the professor has posted a problem on the chalkboard and everyone is running to the lecture to see if the student who solved it will reveal themselves. I'd like to think I am one of the little people at the bottom on for a split second, but I doubt it. Anyways, I didn't know the film, but I knew it was a movie, so I chuckled to myself, and then sheepishly disappeared into the building.
So, as we emerged from Cheonggyecheon, I kind of felt like that. Luckily, however, they were filming in the other direction, so we weren't disrupting anything as we came up and watched to figure out what the heck was going on. The people were just standing around for a few seconds, when suddenly, the music started again, and they began dancing in unison.
Ah! K-pop! They were shooting a K-pop video! Cool! For the uninitiated, K-pop is the Korean version of J-pop, which itself is the Japanese version of American pop music. But it is so much more! The blog Eat Your Kimchi is run by an American brother/sister team teaching English in Korea, and gives a great overview of what is hip in K-pop. The style is hard to describe. Imagine Spice Girls full of Katy Perrys, but with super processed sounds and nonsensical lyrics about love in hybrid Konglish (Korean/English). And those are the K-pop boy groups! Seriously, everyone looks like Justin Bieber. Anyways, these groups and videos are everywhere in Korea, and have already taken Asia by storm.
As strange as this was, an even stranger thing was the camera crew and director... they were Indian (dot, not feather). At least, we think they were Indian - they were so wrapped in winter wear that it was hard to tell. Like I said, the temperature was mid-60s, but to each his own.
After seeing a shot or two, we continued on to the central downtown plaza...
... in front of one of the main palaces...
... and found the statue of Admiral Yi-Sun Shin, probably Korea's greatest hero. We have no idea what that guy is looking at, and why he felt necessary to stare it at the exact moment to ruin John's picture.
Anyways, Admiral Shin is important because he was a particularly manly moment in Korea's history. Being stuck between the two cultural behemoths of China and Japan, Korea got invaded a lot by both over the centuries. During one of the few moments of non-occupation, Admiral Shin is famous for acquiring gunpowder from the Chinese, and then building ironclad turtle ships to fend off a Japanese invasion. Hence the statue.
Eric also pays homage.
Surrounding the plaza are these markers commemorating important people and events from Korean history...
... the most important of which is King Sejong the Great, possibly the only person more important than Admiral Shin. Among other accomplishments, his most important one is developing the Korean written language, considered by some to be the most scientific written language in the world. How is it scientific? Glad you asked. Korea has 24 letters that are arranged into syllables, with groups of syllables being words. So, in the above writing on the statue, you have 13 letters forming four syllables. The syllabic aspect is one part of being "scientific." The other is there are no exceptions to the written language. None. No thousands of Chinese characters, or "i before e, except after c" nonsense. Each word sounds exactly like it is spelled, making Korean a fairly easy language to learn to read. The grammar and vocabulary, however, is another matter.
Given the statue's importance, we got a group picture. But that was also a bit of an adventure. There actually weren't that many people around the statue, so the first guy I could ask was a guy (more like kid) in a military uniform. For those who don't know, Korea still has mandatory military service of about 22 months. All males must serve before 35, and it's taken pretty seriously. You think draft-dodging is a big issue in U.S. elections? Tons of politicians have been taken down because their kids have gotten question military exemptions.
I actually almost got caught up in all of this, if my cousin Roy hadn't serendipitously bailed me out. I was going to go to Korea in 2001 to celebrate by grandfather's 88th birthday, when my cousin Roy, who lived in LA and was visiting Seoul, was drafted into the military on his way back to LA. Yup. Drafted. Into the sixth largest army in the world. Facing off against a crazy dictator sitting on the fourth largest army in the world, across a DMZ that President Clinton called the scariest place on Earth. The Koreas are still technically at war (there is only an armistice), and you can bet they take their army training equally seriously.
Turned out that even though we were both U.S. citizens without Korean citizenship, my grandfather had listed us on some family roll somewhere, and so when Roy tried to leave, he was flagged for not having served. Uh oh. Having heard this, my grandfather went into action, and got us removed from the rolls. So, until it was resolved, Roy only had to do a few days of basic. Which still sucked. Luckily, this was all cleared up by the time I got to Korea, but to this day, the immigration officers do hassle me a bit when I leave Korea.
Anyways, this military guy was rushing around rather hurriedly with a walkie-talkie when I stopped and asked him to take a quick photo for us. He was surprised when I stopped him, and then a bit uncomfortable, mumbling something about how busy he was making important rounds. What rounds could be so important at a tourist attraction, I do not know, but he then just stumbled along. Luckily, a nice couple came up about that time, and readily offered to take the picture for us. And there it is.
This ugly looking building is one part of the U.S. embassy. Very 1970s retro-block architecture. Eric had to pay homage to the motherland.
And with that, we left downtown onto our next adventure. Vamonos.
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