Insadong

Insadong

Mandu Near Tomgi.  Insadong.

It is a place that I have spent the most time in in Seoul but also a place I know the least about. 

It was my R and R destination when I lived in Cheongju.  I don't know how many nights I spent in the Tomgi Hotel that last time around, but I figure they came away from our torrid relationship with no less thn 500,000W of my not-so-hard-earned money. 

The Tomgi was good to me.  I can't imagine I will ever be desperate enough or rich enough to stay there again now that I am a resident of Seoul but it is nice to see it as I come to the surface from the subway.  It is still there: neon letters, trash, derelicts, and business cards for in-call prostitutes.  Empty green bottles, once containing soju, rest against the curb and the trash bins are overflowing; remnants of the soju tents that appear at night and vanish come sun-up.

I smile when I see the building.  A Korean couple (at least in the physical sense) open the tinted door and run in.  40,000W for 4 hours in the day, if I remember. 

Still this is basically the extent of my knowledge of Insadong.  I remember hearing about art galleries, antique dealers, and stalls selling every manner of traditional Korean goods.  I saw this part of Insadong only once, with Dawoon who I met in Greece, when she took me on a walk through the main drag.  I remember drinking coffee and catching up, talking about trees and mountains in the coldest and most rugged part of Greece in the winter.  That day, Korea was an extension of our experience together in a work camp. 

I remember tea shops and hipsters, tourists and the Blue House but not much else.  My real area of expertise then was the stretch of road between the Tomgi, the store next door that sold soju and cigarettes, and the McDonalds down the road.  On these solo trips I made no effort to get to know Seoul- I got drunk and watched Jersey Shore (known locally as Mad Party House) and sat in the in-room jacuzzi.  A love motel at its finest requires no love other than a man and his snack wrap. 

The music shop is still there.  I bought a guitar there.  It was cheap and a higher quality than anything I had owned previously.  I played "Puff the Magic Dragon" with it for the Christmas Pageant in Cheongju.  It is now owned by Han's father.  I remember it fondly.

I walk to Tapgol Park.  As far as historical monuments go it is easy to pass.  Inside, behind glass panneling stands a 10 storied pagoda.  It is a remnant the 15th century Buddhist temple that once occupied the area.  Now, it is perhaps more relevant as the place where the March 1st Movement of 1919 began.  In this area the Proclamation of Independence was read for the first time. 

Old men sit about, cross-legged drinking booze.  A school group is waiting in line for the bathroom.  I cut infront of them, see the 50 foot troth that serves as a urinal and walk right on out.  There are certain moments in which kids who want to say "hi" to you are not welcomed. 

I wander through alleys for a long time.  A few hours pass and I am lost in that I don't specifically know where I am but not worried because the bustle and the smell of fresh fish and burning meat tell me that I am still in Insadong. 

The alleys are dark.  The overhangs of the buildings that form these arteries and the spider webs of cables serve to blot out the sun.  If this wasn't Korea it would be a prime place to get jumped.  It is Korea though and the biggest danger is, as always, the possiblilty of being run down by a lunatic delivery man on a scooter or scaled by steam pouring from a mandu shop. 

I surface again on the edge of a park.  To my left are the walls of the Jongmyo Shrine, a place that has existed in one form or another since 1394.  It is an extremely significant place in Korean history and thus its nationalistic culture.  Ordinarily, a tour guide is required to enter but as luck would have it it is Saturday, and on this day it is not. 

I am about to walk in but to the right I find what might be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen in this country.

In Cheongju I came across 30 or so ajummas practicing some sort of rythmic drumming routine on the side of a river.  As they marched back and forth pounding giant drums while still dressed in the standard, clashing ajumma uniform they struck me as an army.

Instant Cancer.  Insadong.

In the park next to Jongmyo are hundreds-no thousands- of ajoshis sitting beneath the trees.  I want to say that I see their movements like birds in a bush but the truth is they are hardly moving.  The only thing that really gives any indication that they have not all died at once is the murmor of ambiguous conversation.  Occasionaly there is a loud grunt, sometimes the sound of a throat being violently cleared (one of the main tracks on the Korean Soundtrack album, by the way). 

As I walk through, cautiously snapping a couple of photos, I become aware that there isn't a single woman in this whole bunch.  They are all playing, waiting to play, or hovering over a game of Reversi.  Just about every last one of these unsmiling men is chainsmoking to such an extent that even in the open air the smell of ash and tobacco is overwhelming.  There are no pigeons here.  In any other park of this sort they would be lingering everywhere.  They have either been replaced by this lot or they have all died of avian lung cancer. 

I pay my 1,000W to get into Jongmyo.  It is a serene place in this city but still obviously in a city.  While its grounds are expansive there are groups of school kids running around everywhere.  I have to walk all the way to its forested rear to get any solitude.  I find a colorful shack in the trees and wonder how old it is and if it is haunted; turns out to be a bathroom. 

Jongmyo Shrine.  Insadong.

I see tourists now and again with the English guidebook, available free of charge.  Mine is in my pocket.  I often go to these historic places with no previous knowledge of them whatsoever and then read about them later.  This is a stupid habit as I often pass by something really awesome without knowing that it is anything but a mound in the grass. 

I am making this whole treck because I am on a kind of self-imposed deadline.  The One Year Issue of Kamikaze Magazine is set to come out the next morning.  I am going to be spending the rest of the weekend trying to finish it.  The purpose of this trip is to make a few more images.  I don't linger anywhere too long. 

There is something unearthly about the shrine if you can remember that it is not a fancy place that is going to blow you away with sparkle.  It is subdued and natural in a sense because it is old as shit.  Like most ancient places in Korea, the Japanese felt the need to burn it when they came over.  If you want real accurate dates and a detailed history Wikipedia is always close at hand. 

It was built for the sake of ritual memorial services.  After a time of mourning that lasted various amounts of time for various kings and their wives (maybe others, I don't know) tablets representing the souls of the departed were brought to this place.  A ceremony with sacrifices was held and these spirit tablets were entoumbed. 

This place still hosts the Spirit Tablets of the kings of Joseon Dynasty.  I feel linke a bastard when, upon hearing "Spirit Tablets" for the first time, I think of The Legend of Zelda.

The wole thing was a somber and ritualistic affair.  It is something that seems to be taken seriously.

Ceremonies have been greatly simplified but the place is still sacred.  Amongst the paths and colorful pagodas, ponds and twisted trees is a line of stone.  Atop is a sign that asks visitors not to step on the rocks:

This is for the spirit.

I leave and find my way to the main drag of Insadong: Insadong-gil.  It is a stark contrast to the shrine.  It is not peaceful.  It is chaos.  It is every boardwalk and tourist strip put together.  It reminds me of the streets I wandered aimlessly in Barcelona, almost a year to the day earlier, but somehow it seems busier here. 

I realize that photos would be fairly crappy here because I can't see more than a few feet ahead of me.  Off to the side Turks sell ice cream and fuck with little Korean kids, denying them ice cream with clever turns of a giant spoon.  I see loads of tourists.  I know that they are tourists and not expat teachers or military personel because sometimes they say "hi" to me.  It is nice to not be in a place where even in a tiny kimbap joint it is standard practice to ignore other foreigners, despite the fact that almost all of us are here because we don't know what the fuck we are doing with our lives.

Off in the alleys I find restaurants and curiosities.  I pass a cafe with caged birds outside the door.  The next alley is vacant and polluted: a recycling plant devoid of anybody but a bent old woman hauling a load of cardboard that would rival the shingles my father spends endless hours hauling up roofs.  It is an interesting sight but nobody so much as slows down because they don't sell pottery or calligraphy pens. 

The Spirit Path.  Jongmyo Shrine.  Insadong.

In the middle of it all, parting the sea of people like Moses, is a man with an intercom and a cross painted onto cardboard on his back.  I can't understand him but people avoid him more than they avoid the legless men who drag themselves singing into megaphones here.  I get the idea.  He is the local equivalent of the guy with the signs that say "repent" in Boston and every other local in the greater Massachusetts area. 

As I leave this place, back to my current dwelling in rich-ass Gangnam I pass a stage surrounded by people.  An old woman is playing a traditional instrument.  It is set to that universal Korean ballad tempo and everyone seems enthralled.  It sounds beautiful.  I look around and all ages seem smitten with this lady.  I snap a few more photos and listen for a time.  I listen long enough to identify the song, even if it is in Korean.

Elvis.  "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You."

More photos of this and Gangnam here.

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Tokyo: The End (featuring Hello Kitty)

Oh dear god.

One of the criteria to judge whether or not a medium is obscene or just in bad taste is a lack of any culturally redeeming quality. Some things, not matter how vile or distasteful or generally sick, have some statement about our societies or culture as a whole. Some things just exist for no other reason than to be base or heinous. The guy from Two Girls One Cup violated obscenity law got hit with almost $100,000 forfeiture and 3 years of probation. Others have gone to jail and others should have gone to jail.

Which brings me to Hello Kitty Land.

I wouldn’t have ordinarily made an out of the way trip to HKL but the thing with travel and life in general is that we are all living “out of the way” sort of lives. Besides, Kelly is obsessed with Hello Kitty in much the same way that mammals are obsessed with air. I am fairly positive that one of the reasons she never got wise and ditched me while I was in Korea was that a long time ago I told her if we ever found ourselves in Japan we would go to HKL (actually called Sanrio Puroland).

She called my bluff.

It wasn’t terribly simple to get to the park but we managed. We hopped on one metro (our brief lives in Japan revolved around Shinjuku Station) and thanks to some girl with a decent understanding of English we were soon on another metro heading further out into Tokyo.

KH in HK's tub.

We rode that last metro for quite a while; long enough that I was quite positive we had missed the stop and was wondering how Kelly would take the news. We came so close, I would say, there’s some comfort in that.

I tried to tell Khall that I thought we would have to double back towards a stop that sounded remotely like the stop we wanted and she barely paid me any attention. She knew we hadn’t passed the stop we wanted and spent most of the rest of the ride looking like some manic psycho on the way to burn down some buildings.

Eventually, we stepped out of the subway, crossed the station, headed down a crowded street, hung a left and there it was: Sanrio Puroland, better known as Hello Kitty Land.

It didn’t look so horrible, I thought as we walked and Kelly squealed and spoke a mile a minute. From a distance it didn’t look too far off from Disney World. It had all the necessary requirements that allow the potential for a “forget yourself and get lost in your suppressed youth” sort of good time.

The main building seemed to pop out of thin air when you took that left. It looked like a cross between an amphitheatre and a casino. It looked decidedly unconventional, as all amazing theme parks should, and seemed to draw in everyone near by. The shops along the walkway sold food and all things Hello Kitty. All theme parks worth their weight should let out a sort of commercial sprawl that blots out any lame local specialties like paintings or sculptures. Beyond the gates was what I assumed to be the park grounds, where I would spend the day riding roller coasters and bumper cars and eating French fries. I didn’t even mind that the roller coaster would have a cartoon cat on its front.



Oh jeez..



Words cannot accurately describe my emotions when we stepped in and realized that the weird looking building was not only the main building, but also the entire park. Nor can they really accurately describe what it is like to walk into an “amusement” on the opposite side of the world expecting rides and games and carneys. Words also can’t accurately describe the nightmare of realizing your day was going to be spent in a poorly lit McDonald’s play place from hell.

Oh, wait, yes they can: What the f%@*?! would pretty much sum it up.

Hello Kitty Land is not a land, it is a giant building with hallways of magic (read: hell) that circle a huge fake tree scene in the center. Scattered about the floors are such amazing activities as make your own Hello Kitty being (through a series of semi-confusing mini-games) and Hello Kitty’s actual house. Then, of course there are multiple stores on every floor, vendors vending HK paraphernalia, and the worst food court known to man.

It wasn’t all bad, though. There is a ride. One ride. The entire park contained one ride. Given that it was fairly early on a week day, Kelly and I waited for about 3 minutes before we were sat in a log flume boat. All right, I thought. I love log flumes. Splash Mountain once broke down with me on it for a good 15 - 20 minutes and it was 15 - 20 minutes of heaven. Maybe there would even be a drop.

There were four of us in the boat. I was on the left, Kelly was on the right, and two women sat in front of us, the larger of the two also on the left. The result of this was that the boat at times seemed at risk of taking on water port side or straight up capsizing.

Immediately, the ride was in darkness and I heard the chains straining to pull us up a steep incline. I put my camera down and held onto the safety bar. I am no fool when it comes to log flumes, this was the start of something good and I wasn’t about to let my camera get soaked when we splashed down at the bottom. There was a twinge of excitement as we reached the summit and pointed towards exhilaration.

The clasp let us loose and for a second we begin to slide down. Immediately we were seized by some sort of braking mechanism and descended the hill slower than our ascent. Seriously?

As I tried to keep myself from falling forward and into the laps of a couple of strangers I saw what I was in for. Imagine, if you will, that Hello Kitty and all her strange friends invaded and conquered It’s A Small world and you pretty much get the theme of the one ride at the park.

We bumped along the river, always dipping towards the left, and got to see horrible animatronics buzzing around brightly lit pink scenes. The climax of the ride was actually being present as Hello Kitty married her boyfriend. I snapped some pictures as I wondered what on earth I had done to wind up in this particular circle of hell.

Hello Kitty Land

There was one other foreigner in the entire place. He was an older guy from the States who had the excuse of working there. He sold silhouettes. You could buy a pre-made profile of Hello Kitty, or a custom cut profile of yourself and Hello Kitty. If you chose the latter option he even had the decency to throw in the negative side of your profile for no extra cost on top of the $50 or so the thing actually cost us.

That he was a champion up seller or not, the guy was actually pretty cool. He cut out a fairly accurate profile of Kelly in a minute or so and told us his entire life story. He had been working for Disney. He was apparently the creator of most of their well known profiles, beloved by silhouette artisans everywhere before he made the move to Tokyo. Then he single handedly created the profile of Hello Kitty and his fame led him to stand day in and day out in some sort of fluffy pirate shirt on the main thoroughfare. Sarcasm and bitterness aside the guy was actually pretty impressive as far as where he had been and what he had done.



Yoyogi Park



So, that was Hello Kitty Land. It wasn’t the greatest place I have ever been but I guess you can’t complain too much when your girlfriend gives you a free trip to a theme park. In any case, I can appreciate her wanting to go given that it’s an obsession of hers. Hell, whenever somebody opens up Lord of the Rings Land or Star Wars World I will be there.



Shibuya Intersection



We stayed in Japan another couple of days before we made our way back to Seoul. We went to a huge park called Yoyogi Park in Shibuya. We walked around there for a long time before returning through the Shibuya Intersection. I don’t know the cross streets but if you have seen any modern movie based in Tokyo (Lost in Translation) you would know the place. Basically there is a mass of people going in every direction when the crosswalk signs light up to the backdrop of a giant video screen in a building.

In Seoul, we got to see a giant Lantern Festival and eat really expensive steaks at Outback Steak House which I made up for by buying a new guitar.

Kelly came back to Cheongju and got to see what actually happens in my classes. For instance, she got to see me spray kids with water, wrestle them, and pin them into corners and teach them while holding them in head locks. I was sad to see her go, but all in all it was an AWESOME vacation!

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