Thurs., May 17, 2012

On Thursday I rose from my nest and took the subway to Seoul again.  I feel right at home on the system now, in fact I can navigate it better than I can the streets above ground.  Once I’m looking down at the ordered, colored, geometric lines on my ‘Rough Guide’ metro map and up at the clearly lit station names in the centre of each car, I feel I know what I’m doing.  Out on the streets I get lost after two turns, so many small shops, stalls, lights and people. It makes me think of the old song, “ He may ride forever ‘neath the streets of Boston…”  I may ride forever ‘neath the streets of Seoul/Incheon.  Aside from being clear, the metro is clean.  The toilets at every stop are spotless.  The paper is centrally located; you take some and choose whether you want to squat or sit.  The door of each cubicle is clearly marked with a picture showing either an ordinary toilet or a kind of horizontal urinal.  I don’t know whether you’re supposed to base your choice on what you have to do or what position you prefer to assume, but I usually choose the sitter.

This time in Seoul I visited Changdeokgung, the palace that the ‘Rough Guide’ refers to as, ‘the choice of palace connoisseurs.’  I bought the deluxe ticket that included access to the secret garden, which is no longer a secret but is wonderful to walk around, shady and quiet except when the people protesting on the main street get into high gear, beating drums and singing loudly, some into microphones.  I spent a lot of time inside the palace gates, wandering in and around buildings and gardens and looking for the enormous mulberry tree left from the days of the emperor whose wife tried to encourage the people to practice sericulture by setting an example of doing a bit herself.  I never did find it.  If I had taken the guided tour, it would have been pointed out, but I prefer to go on my own and have the illusion of discovering things that in fact millions of people visit each year.  As I returned to the metro, I passed the demonstration that had disturbed the peace of the secret garden.  There were more police than protesters, but the drums, loud chants and songs made the latter seem quite formidable.  I have no idea what it was all about, but Jay’s friend said that there has been discontent over housing costs in Seoul lately and as it was in front of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, perhaps it was related to that.  It’s strange being in a place where you have no idea what’s happening around you.  Jay and I both read the news on our computers daily, so if the world is involved, we might know, but locally, I’m clueless about the issues.

Friday, after spending some time with Jay in the morning, I took a taxi to Incheon’s Chinatown.  It was a long drive but only cost 12,000 won, about $11.00.  Incheon is a huge city and yet it’s small compared to Seoul.  Chinatown is near the port area, where MacArthur landed in Sept., 1950 during the Korean War.  In a nearby park, Jayu Park, there’s a statue of him and an acknowledgement of his contribution to South Korean history, even though there are many here and elsewhere who justifiably find fault with his readiness to use nuclear weapons on the peninsula and with some of his other less admirable contributions.  I spent about five hours wandering around the park and Chinatown.  I visited the Museum of Korean and Chinese Culture, which had some exceptionally fine pottery and china and ended with a ten-minute tour of a noodle museum.  It commemorates the specific Chinese noodle that was hand made in the area and kept the ‘coolies’ who built the port in the late 1800s alive.  I arrived at ten to six and it closed at six, but that was about enough time to dedicate to looking at noodles.  Eating them is another matter.  

A flower on a tree in the secret garden

One of the many buildings in the palace complex

Gargoyles on the roof of the palace

Loud protesters in front of the Ministry of Health and Welfare

A weird guy walking by the protest.  I thought he might be carrying a bomb in the briefcase.  Was he wearing a mask against the sun, the pollution, to protect others from his germs or for some more sinister reason????

The gates of Incheon's Chinatown

I took this picture in Jayu Park to show Micheline and Cathy Van de Vyvere a Korean chicken and turkey.  This was a large, very well-kept enclosure with all sorts of birds in it.

This giant pipe made me think of Albert.  There were older men all over Jayu Park playing this game.

Jayu park had more pansies than I have ever seen together before, all colours and sizes.  Many gardeners were still at work planting more of them as well as other flowers.  One of the best plots had different coloured pansies and Icelandic poppies together.  Unfortunately, my picture of that did not turn out.

This man in Chinatown is sticking pork and vegetable buns to the side of a clay oven to cook.  They are delicious.  

Me outside the Museum of Korean and Chinese Culture