Brokedown Palace

The weather is nuts.  It is Saturday and I am on a tour of Seoul.  It rains briefly and the wind is freezing.  Cloud cover comes and the city is gloomy.

My tour guides are new Korean friends.  Kiki and Joe.  After a couple weeks of feeling useless and bummed about not really having any Korean friends, Han in New York rang her friend Kiki. 

We head into the basement of a huge building for a bite to eat.  Japanese food. 

I eat something.  I don't know the name of it but it is delicious.  It is a kind of bibimbap.  Kiki eats udon noodles in a soy sauce with a bunch of stuff ontop.  It is covered in whispy fish flakes.  The heat of the noodles make the flakes wiggle around.  They look like they are writhing. 

We talk.  I ask about a million questions.  Magazine work has prepared me for meeting new people.  Silences can't ever be awkward if I am constantly jabbering.

Both of them studied in Boston.  We talk a lot about Boston.  They know my university which is something that suprizes me.  In all my time in Korea and other places, nobody has ever heard of Suffolk University. 

Baseball is a universal language.  Both Joe and I went to St Elizabeth's hospital in Brighton.  All three of us like the Pour House.  Joe and I order beers. Well, I don't order anything.  In most situations here I am about as useful as a functioning baby. 

We order coffee.  In the foam of Kiki's drink a heart has been drawn. 

Outside snow swirls with the wind.  When I left it was sunny.  It briefly looks as though the world might end.  In an instant the snow is gone and the sun is out.

Gyeongbokgung Palace. 

I had seen this place once before.  A year earlier, almost to the day I found myself making a panicked dash to the US Embassy in order to replace a lost passport.  I see the crowd control vehicles and security at the walls of the embassy.  Security is tight everywhere in Seoul.  Obama arrives tomorrow for the Seoul Nuclear Safety meeting-thing. 

We watch for a moment as men with black beards march back and forth.  They wear traditional garb and carry spears.  A drum keeps time.  It is the changing of the guard. 

The palace was built in 1394.  Since then it has been burnt, destroyed by war, rebuilt, etc.  Walking along the paths it is possible to forget for a moment that we are in Seoul.  Kids play and there are throngs of people everywhere and the constant click of cameras, but it is other-worldly.  This place is older than the USA. 
We walk along side alleys until we are alone.  In the distance are mountains.  Snow reflects light on the tallest peak.  Joe points out a small hut on a ridge and tells me that he spent time there when he served his mandatory military service. 

Two women, dressed in hanboks walk behind the skeletons of trees. 

After, on our way back to the subway they take me to the largest book store in Korea.  Actually, it seems to sell everything imaginable, including guitars and ukuleles.  They help me buy a usb cable for my camera, something I had been looking for passively since I landed here. 

Before we part ways Kiki buys me a bag of warm, spongy, puffs of dough.  Inside there is some sort of custard and sweet bean. 

"It is my favorite food," she says.  "Eat it on the subway."

I eat the whole bag and then feel like an American fat-ass.

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Seoul, Day One

It wasn’t much of a vacation but it was deserved and welcomed. I was starting to get sick of kids. I found myself beginning to dread certain classes as though I were still a student. Before Intensives I saw each student somewhere around every other day; I now see most of them every day. Sorry kids, I need a break. I need some space, ya know? I mean, you are all sweet children but I can only take so many cute and adorable moments before I crack.

Angry Girl, I am looking at you. I really appreciate you taking a kid friendly game of Guess That Picture and turning it into a death threat that could have made the news back home. Thank you for laughing as you drew a bottle of soju to go along with the fat man hanging from the gallows. Why couldn’t you draw a chair or a pencil like everyone else?

So, after the weekend of my first ever shabu-shabu and screen golf experiences I headed to Seoul, all alone and on a mission.

Two months earlier, for some truly stupid reason I thought I had some sort of new Xbox power supply that didn’t need a step-down transformer. I plugged the thing into an adaptor and into the wall. Turns out, I do need a transformer after all. I also need a new power supply. Enter Yongsan Electronics Market.

Yongsan is sort of a dream come true and a living nightmare all at once, but I’ll get to that. It is allegedly the largest market of the kind in Asia (quoting Wikipedia / Lonely Planet on that one so don’t quote ME) Suffice it to say that from somebody I do not know’s blog I heard of a guy there who would repair Xbox power supplies that morons like me had gone and fried. The blog was fairly recent so I assumed it would be a cinch to find the guy; probably had a big sign even.

I figured “hey, man. You are on vacation so why not make a few days out of it?” So I did. I left my apartment early Monday afternoon and didn’t plan on returning until Wednesday with a working power supply.

The plan was to take a bus to whatever bus terminal it was in Seoul that I said “nay” to when the cashier asked me. I would then take the subway to Youngsan and find a cheap little Love Hotel to use as a base. I would then find some amazing western food, have a drink, sleep and then deal with the Market on Tuesday.

I talked with a high school girl on the bus. She asked me: “If I go to America, will my face be ugly?” She spent most of the hour and a half trip reading bits of the Lonely Planet guide to Cheongju back to me. I spent most of the hour and a half trip trying not to sweat on her.

I have to say I did pretty well for a while trying to get around Seoul. I had a minute of panic trying to figure out where to transfer subways but I got it all sorted out and was soon stepping out into Yongsan station and straight into the market.

Sometimes, travel is just about trying to get the hell out of a place. I tried like hell to get out of the market but every exit seemed to take me via covered bridge to another section full of appliances, games, and computer parts. I ended up following a sunken alley through convenience stores and shanty grocers and then finally into the open air.

The market is massive and stretches along the roads outside of the main building. In any other area the stores would be selling Kimbap, soju, and cigarettes: in Yongsan they sell tripods, cell phones, and computers to which they might not have selling rights. It was as sketchy as people hawking high-powered graphics cards can get.

The heat proved to be the theme of my vacation. At times, for example between the hours of 7am and 6:50 am it was unbearable. I walked up and down Yongsan with a bag full of clothes and my laptop and my camera bag. I did so for two hours, until I thought that soon I would have to burn my clothes and figured that apparently not too many people are looking for a cheap hotel in Youngsan.

After downing my third bottle of water I pulled out my Lonely Planet and found a neighborhood more apt to give me results in my hotel search: the sun was fading, my feet hurt and I was out of water.

Anguk. A ride on one subway and then another took me to Anguk. When I came to the surface twilight had ceased and night was on me. I was starting to get worried that maybe my vacation wouldn’t be nearly as relaxing as I was hoping. I started to wonder if I’d be spending the night on a bench with a bag of clothes and over a thousand bucks worth of camera junk.

Enter the Tomgi Hotel. I saw its neon through the trees next to the metro stairs and decided that I would be staying at this place regardless of its cost. I walked through a hopping market street, past a soju tent and a dozen of so street food stalls. I passed into smoke and the sound of the night as bars spilled into the road. Alcohol flows readily in Seoul, even on a Monday night.

Tomgi is a love motel but it has class. I paid 60,000W for the night and took the elevator to the dark 8th floor. Soft pop music piped into the hallway as I stuck the keycard in its slot. Ten minutes later I managed to discover that the lights only worked if the card was put into another slot. Things look different in the light. I had been expecting a motel room with cigarette burns on the floor or things growing in the bathroom. I was ready for all sorts of bad things. What I got was shocked.

To start I had a giant, firm queen that sat next to a window that looked down upon the night and her people going this way and that. In front of the bed was a GIANT flat screen TV, a water dispenser, a PC, and a fridge full of Gatorade. In the bathroom was a 2 or 3 person whirlpool that worked, a full-body shower, and a toilet with a heated rim and a bidet.

I remember thinking that it wasn’t such a bad deal after as I sat in the foaming tub with a can of Cass while watching My Name is Earl on the TV.

 

This photo is the fire escape.  Seriously.

What did I eat today?  Kimchi and egg ramen (not good).  Vegetarian curry and rice made by me (pretty freaking awesome).

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On Dogs and Alcohol

The next day I got lost.

It was bound to happen as it always does. When I moved to Beacon Hill I managed to get all turned around in the brownstones for two hours before I found my way back to Somerset St. I was going to meet Larry from Cheonan at Starbucks in Cheongju and there we would have a reunion neither of us thought would ever happen. Larry found Starbucks with no trouble. I never had a chance.

 

Starbucks, it turns out, was in Uptown while I thought it was in Downtown. This mistake didn’t make much of a difference because I couldn’t find Downtown to begin with. I walked for an hour or more until the people all disappeared and the trendy shops were replaced with dirtier streets and shambled stores.

Being lost in your own country is embarrassing, but being lost in Korea on your third day can be panic inducing. I managed to get so jumbled about that before I knew it I couldn’t even find my way back to where I had come from. I walked and walked until I was pouring sweat in the humidity and more or less wanted to cry.

Eventually I came to the main gates of Chunbuk University. Remembering that Downtown was situated off of the University, I walked a half mile in either direction but never found Downtown. Finally, I plopped myself down against the gates and told Larry that I would not be moving any further or else I might be wandering my way into a North Korean Gulag. If he wanted to hang out then he was going to have to try and find me.

Larry found me in all of 5 minutes. He was a sight to see after not seeing him since my old place at 24 Proctor , and what’s more he was decked out in leather and riding an old black motorcycle. It was good to see him; after all, he was the one who convinced me to pack up and head to Korea.

Together we walked to Uptown as it was the only place we knew the general direction of. It was a long way and it was humid as hell. I would have taken my jacket off if I hadn’t been sweating like a tweeker. We wandered the markets that we came across; almost hidden in alleys. They reminded me of the markets I found while wandering about Mexico: dreary and far off the tourist path but vital arteries of culture. The first was tiny and soon spit us back onto the main road, but the second was something to see.

It was one main throughway on a dingy street. It was dark and a little bit dank but there were so many people! Vendors sold everything: Bugs, crops, sand shrimp that jumped from their baskets, the ugliest fish I had ever seen and bags and bags of this and that. We continued on down the main path until we came at last to a live market.

If people were speaking around us I no longer remember. There were the squawks of chickens and the calls of roosters. One vendor had pens and pens of farm birds, while another had a collection of ducks sitting in tiny wire cages. Another sold rabbits and everybody sold eggs. If only I had my camera. If that was all that was at the market I would have left happy and satisfied. As it was we came into the last stretch and Larry broke our silence.

“Yep, there’s the dog.”

I had heard rumors of this, but I didn’t really believe them, but there was the proof right there. First, it was just cuts of formless meat beneath clouded glass, but finally we came to a few stalls that had de-furred or skinned dogs hanging like sausages in a butcher shop.

It is hard to look down on a culture that you do not understand, and I don’t, but there is something sacred about dogs. Whatever I have ever heard about the historic relationship between man and canine was that it was generally a mutually beneficial sort of thing; but here, there was nothing beneficial going on for Fido who now dangled dead from a chain.

I asked and Larry told me that they got many of the dogs from China as it was illegal in Korea and had been since Seoul hosted the Olympics, but it apparently was not enforced. Still, even he was surprised to see so many openly hanging or laying about.

It was a sad sight to be seen by somebody who misses his dog.

Still, life goes on and I am just a visitor to this place in the end. We wandered for a long time. We passed through Uptown, and through the street with the animal-people and microphones and sound systems and I was once again finding myself dizzy as we walked through the thousands. It seems that always we are walking against the crowd here.

We ate a good lunch in a food court. I had spicy pork, rice, kimchi and soup until Larry informed me that it was essentially squid broth and the once odd flavor and funny little chunks became disgusting. We walked back to the general direction of my place.

I would like to say I went and got my camera and took a bunch of photos, or that Larry and I went and had a cultural outing. I would like to say all of these things but we didn’t do any of them. Like most of my Suffolk friends, the original bond between Larry and I had a high proof. We went to one dark and smoky local bar, then to another where we watched Korean soap operas and ate a potato sampler and drank Cass beer and soju. We ended up at a joint called Vons that had the most wonderful chicken, though I have no idea where it is anymore, where we had one last pitcher. Actually, I had one glass and could not drink any more and poor Larry drank the rest of it.

That was the end of the night.

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