Hanging out in Hyehwa

On the bus over there in search of coffee and a movie, I leaned over to Lauren and commented in an audible whisper, "The guy next to me is reading the Bible". The elderly man promptly made a large gesture of placing the yellow ribbon on his marked page before embarking on a lengthy conversation with me. Perhaps this was in order to prove to me that he spoke near-perfect English - at least for someone who has never studied in an English-speaking country - or less cynically, perhaps he was genuinely after a chance to practice his language skills.

Either way, somehow or other he swiftly managed to steer from the usual small talk to deep political discussion regarding the North/South Korean divide (rather apt since we only just visited the DMZ the other day). He replied negative when I asked whether he had any relatives in North Korea, but proceeded to tell me about his sister who had fled there 57 years ago to save her communist husband.

With the new possibilities of reuniting families that were separated during the Korean war under controlled circumstances, his sister was able to ask him whether Korea had electricity - back in the days of the war outside of the capital the luxury was apparently scarce - and he was able to learn that the North Korean government feed up those going to meet their Southern counterparts a few months in advance to give them the appearance of being well-fed.

Being only an hour from the border it is somewhat food for thought the lack of knowledge that passes over that 155 miles of demilitarized zone.

Despite drooping eyes, we headed for the Hyehwa cinema. It seems like it's a pretty cool area with many bars, coffee shops and street sellers, though I am yet to explore in the daytime. Opting for an English film, we went for The Other Boleyn Girl. Whether it was totally historically accurate or not, it certainly made for a gripping film. It was also good to hear some good British accents filling the room for a couple of hours, despite the leads originating from America.

Princess Cafe

After another hectic day at work, unsuccessful and frustrating complaints to the boss and no doubt plenty more to come, Lauren and I decided to meet up for a quick recoup before heading home for the evening.

Wanting to venture outside our usual haunts, Lauren noticed Cafe Princess up on the 6th floor of one of the many neon flashing streets. Why not? we thought. Just after a simple cuppa, we were somewhat bewildered by what we encountered.

Private curtained rooms adorned with pink wallpaper, flowers and kitsch cushions and accessories? It seemed a little OTT, even for Korea.

However, we embraced these minor details once we realised the man won price per room (that's like a fiver) offering free refills of tea/juice/coffee/cookies/icecream. With deals like that going, we weren't sure why we weren't already frequenting the place.

Seoul Land

With the rest of my immediate family over for a fleeting visit, I eventually managed to get a day off work last Friday to spend time with them.

Described in the guide book as "Seoul's biggest and best amusement park", we decided to hit Seoul Land. I'd been there before with my kids last month, but only got to max out on the kiddy rides. Being a weekday and clearly not the most popular theme park in Seoul, we practically had the park to ourselves so were able to ride all the scary rides twice over, if we wanted. And we did.


Not bad for a city park and the two big coasters were worth a ride (or two), but we all agreed the whole place is due a re-vamp and a lick of paint.

On Saturday we took the USO tour of the DMZ, but tiredness is prevailing so will save the post for another day. In the meantime I refer you to Lauren's blog which I understand gives a good account of our experiences ;-)

Visiting family

On Saturday mamma and I travelled south of the river to spend time with her two sisters, one of their daughters, and one of their daughters, making for a big girly family reunion.

My cousin’s daughter (if you work out all the family relationships) has been going to an English hagwon since she was essentially two years old (four in Korean age), so two years on she speaks pretty good broken English. She enjoyed showing me all her English books and showing off her knowledge by answering my stock “What colour is it?” and “How many are there?” questions. As entertaining as this was, if I were after some more sophisticated banter, I was unsurprisingly out of luck. Since my Korean is just a smidge less than fluent, trying to tune into a bunch of Korean women nattering about the latest beauty trick (or whatever I imagined they were talking about) got a tad dull.

Today my mum and I were meeting my uncle and his family (who fortunately for me speak good English even if they choose to speak in their native tongue) for lunch at the COEX Mall in downtown Seoul. While we were there we took the opportunity to stroll around the neighbouring Bongeunsa Temple.





Like many of Seoul’s ancient sites, Bongeunsa is just plonked in the middle of the high rise apartments of the area (well, I’m sure the temple probably came first), but surprisingly made for a peaceful retreat from the buzzing of the nearby traffic. Buddhist monks led mass praying while others went to bow on the large marble floor in front of the 23-meter high Buddha statue that over-towers the local high school. Red paper lanterns have been put up around the temple complex in preparation for Buddha’s birthday in May – May! The year is whizzing by – while posters commented on the changing beliefs of Buddhists in the 21^st century.

The lunch was good too.

Deoksugung Guard Change

Here's my amateur footage of the changing of the guards at Deoksugung Palace.

Turn of the seasons

Last week it was snowing; this week it is bright and sunny. They said the seasons change fast, but this is practically tropical.

To celebrate this gorgeous weather, I'm inside procrastinating against planning my afternoon classes. School has been a tad stressful lately with the introduction of the new English program in the kindergarten where plans get changed hourly. "Not fixed yet," and, "This is first time" are common phrases heard around the staff room.

On the plus side, my mum is currently visiting in Korea, with the rest of the family to follow next week. It's great to have my own personal interpreter; sometimes I forget she can speak Korean ;) We spent last weekend meeting my grandma and getting our hair permed - "magic" straight perms are all the rage here, but are getting taken over in popularity by "setting" perms that give you long curly locks - and doing a touch of sight seeing.

Among other things we headed to Deoksugung where we enjoyed a peaceful stroll around the palace as well as taking touristy photographs with the palace "guards". Like Gyeongbokgung, Deoksugung hosts a re-enactment of the ancient changing of the guard ritual. This time I took video. I'll post it when I'm back on my own PC.

We went to mourn the late Namdaemun gate which has now been totally blocked save a small viewing window. Sheets for graffiti have been pasted up for people to express their regret. We also visited the gothic Myeongdong Cathdral. Scaffolding and false facades continue to be the bane of my travels.

Lauren makes her debut

Last Sunday Lauren and I went to the Sejong Centre to see the The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged. It was silly, full of over-acting, and very amusing. We were especially impressed with the way they had adapted their script according to the nationality of the audience; there was an annyeonghaseyo scripted in as well as a version of Tell Me providing the background music for the Capulet's house party.

When we went to purchase our tickets we were advised towards some of the front seats, but we were more attracted to the cheaper tickets. On arriving at the theatre we were told that the circles were closed for that show and our tickets were exchanged for front row seats instead.

I always fear that front row viewers will be subjected to audience participation, but it seems that on this occasion my fear was misplaced. It was Lauren, not I, that was dragged onto stage to play Hamlet's Ophelia, got ridiculed for her acting abilities (in jest, of course), and had a spotlight on her as she performed a particularly amusing and impressive scream.

This is apparently an occurrence of every performance of this play, but if we'd been aware of it perhaps we would have fought a bigger fight for the tickets we'd bought. Still, despite this being a subject of her nightmares, I'd say Lauren gave the professionals a run for their money!

Independence Movement Day

On March 1, 1919, a Declaration of Independence from Japanese rule was read in Tapgol Park, Seoul. 33 signed the declaration and all 33 were arrested and sent to Seodaemun prison as political prisoners.

To this day the declaration is read in Tapgol Park every March 1 to commemorate the fight from Japanese colonialism. We went by to check out the festivities.

There was traditional dancing, singing of all four verses of the national anthem and of course the speech itself. The most emotive part of the ceremony was the painting of the Japanese flag accompanied by a drum beat, before defacing it with blue paint.

On talking to various Korean people about their attitudes towards their neighbours, it seems that in reality the background of the relationship between the countries does not spark bias against their Japanese friends. However, despite individual acceptance of the Japanese, deep emotional conflict against the nation clearly remains.

The defacing of the Japanese flag

Fun Fridays

Of course this should be entitled with a singular Friday, since I will only be referring to one - namely yesterday - of the many Fridays in existence. To compensate for the misfortune that we've had to work for the past two Saturdays, we were graced with the blessings of a long weekend. Thought I'd get a head start on the reports.

Taking advantage of the weekday, we finally made it to the Van Gogh exhibition. Despite getting in first thing in the morning, our viewing pleasure was still tested by the flow of keen Seoulites and groups of school trippers. Was glad not to have visited at peak time. The exhibition itself was well laid out in chronological order making it easy/interesting to see the various themes and styles the artist adopted throughout his life.


Over lunchtime we headed to Gyeongbokgung - the Palace of Shining Happiness. It was the main palace of the Joseon dynasty but was burned during the Japanese invasions of the 1590s. It was rebuilt to high glory during the remaining years of the dynasty in the late 19th century, but was largely demolished under Japanese rule in 1911. It continues to be restored today; in fact Gwanghwamun - the main gate of the palace - was dismantled last year for renovation and will not return until 2009. Another landmark of Seoul whose presence I will not be graced with this visit.

At midday we witnessed the hourly changing of the guard re-enactment. Since the palace no longer inhabits royalty, this is a commentated ritual carried out for the benefit of tourism. I did wonder whether being in possession of a shaped straight beard was in the guard job description, but on close inspection many were definitely stuck on. Apparently close up photography of peripheral facial hair is frowned upon, as is imitating guards for amusing photographic purposes.


The palace itself showed a glimpse of its former beauty and grandeur. Being aware of many of the features of palaces in general from our less than extensive tours of other such structures, the tour that we received was not as informative as we'd hoped. Still, the few rays of sunlight that struggled through the haze of fog lightened the palace to its reputation of Shining Happiness in the middle of the high-rise offices of Seoul.