I met up with Han around noon on the Sunday (the 25th of May) and
we took the bus to Insa-Dong. Insa-Dong is a market that sells traditional Korean art and has many little shops and cafes. We met Sara and Cindy (a graduate student from Han's lab) at a restaurant where we had a cold noodle soup with clams. Not my favourite meal so far.
After lunch we walked around Insa-Dong which is a pedestrian street, a little like Spark's Street. There were many little shops and street merchants, buskers and a parade. The parade was interesting as everyone was dressed up in traditional Korean clothes and beating Korean drums.
We stopped to watch a busker for a few minutes, I had trouble following the act though. The guy was dressed up as a woman and was talking in a high pitched voice and was handing out some type of toffee. So your guess is as good as mine.
The street was full of activity, many of the street vendors were quite interactive, giving demonstrations or little performances to sell their wares. One little shop sold Korean sweets which are made of an almond-paste core wrapped in what I can only describe as silk honey. They started off with a solid chunk of honey into which they worked a small hole and then stretched it into a loop. They then folded the loop in two, making two loops. They then stretched the two loops and folded them to make four loops, then eight, then sixteen... They must have repeated this about 15 times (2^15=32768) until he hand a hole armful of fine strands of honey. All the while, the 6 guys behind the counter had a whole routine worked out where they would count the number of loops and make jokes throughout. It was really entertaining. We bought a box of the almond sweets and they were quite good.
Another vendor was selling rice cakes. As with most things
in Insa-Dong, the cakes were prepared in the traditional fashion. The traditional way being a man beating the (insert expression of choice here) out of the rice with a giant mallet. My friends wanted me to have a go, so they asked the guy to let me try. I went up and grabbed the mallet as the guy showed me where to hit. I lifted the giant thing over my head (if you think the thing looks heavy, its heavier) and I closed my eyes, prayed that I would hit the target and swung down with all of my might. CRACK! The sound of the mallet hitting the rice paste was deafening. I was quite proud of the sound. I took the mallet up again to try and improve on the effort and to show the Koreans what Canadian strength is all about. Unfortunately I must have gotten a little cocky as the mallet didn't come down perfectly square and it just bounced off of the paste with an emasculating 'thud'. And thus ended my rice pounding career.
Just wandering around Insa-Dong was quite pleasant, we got to see a lot of Korean art and food. I'll certainly be returning at the end of the summer to pick up a few souvenirs before I leave Korea. Cindy left us around 3pm as she had to prepare for an interview on Monday.
When Cindy left had reached the end of the market. Han, Sara and myself decided to visit Changdeokgung Palace which was a 10 minute walk from Insa-Dong.
Changdeokgung Palace (also known as the East Palace) in one of the 5 royal palaces built in Seoul. The palace was completed in 1412 and occupies over 500 000 square meters of land. It was not the main Palace of the Korean Emperors, except for a period in the 18-19 century during which time the main palace was rebuilt following a Japanese invasion. I'll spare you the rest of the history of the palace. Check out Wikipedia for more information.
You have to visit the palace with a tour guide, you can't just wander around at your leisure. Unfortunately, there were no more English tours when we arrived so we took a Korean tour instead. It wasn't terrible as Sara was able to translate the most important aspects, but I still feel like I missed out on a lot of interesting things.
The palace itself was nice but I wasn't all that impressed. The buildings were interesting but not terribly ornate or impressive. The court yards were large, but again not all that impressive. After having visited large European palaces like Versaille and Shönbrunn and castles like Neuschwanstein, I was certainly underwhelmed. We couldn't go inside the buildings, we were forced to cram around the windows to see into the King's bedroom or the throne room.
The throne room was quite interesting though. In the video above, the throne room is the large building that I am facing at the beginning of the video. The room had beautiful wood working and beautiful paintings on the walls and ceilings. The throne was also identical to the one I saw at the National Museum of Korea. I had already snapped a few pictures of the throne room when Sara relayed to me that the painting behind the throne is the same image that is found on the 10 000 won bill. I took my camera out again to take a closer picture but it wouldn't turn on. I was terrified that I had already broken my new camera. Ends up the battery was just dead... 10 minutes into the 2 hour tour. Turns out plugging the camera into my computer doesn't charge the battery. "Lesson learned," thought the fool.
The street was full of activity, many of the street vendors were quite interactive, giving demonstrations or little performances to sell their wares. One little shop sold Korean sweets which are made of an almond-paste core wrapped in what I can only describe as silk honey. They started off with a solid chunk of honey into which they worked a small hole and then stretched it into a loop. They then folded the loop in two, making two loops. They then stretched the two loops and folded them to make four loops, then eight, then sixteen... They must have repeated this about 15 times (2^15=32768) until he hand a hole armful of fine strands of honey. All the while, the 6 guys behind the counter had a whole routine worked out where they would count the number of loops and make jokes throughout. It was really entertaining. We bought a box of the almond sweets and they were quite good.
Another vendor was selling rice cakes. As with most things
in Insa-Dong, the cakes were prepared in the traditional fashion. The traditional way being a man beating the (insert expression of choice here) out of the rice with a giant mallet. My friends wanted me to have a go, so they asked the guy to let me try. I went up and grabbed the mallet as the guy showed me where to hit. I lifted the giant thing over my head (if you think the thing looks heavy, its heavier) and I closed my eyes, prayed that I would hit the target and swung down with all of my might. CRACK! The sound of the mallet hitting the rice paste was deafening. I was quite proud of the sound. I took the mallet up again to try and improve on the effort and to show the Koreans what Canadian strength is all about. Unfortunately I must have gotten a little cocky as the mallet didn't come down perfectly square and it just bounced off of the paste with an emasculating 'thud'. And thus ended my rice pounding career.Just wandering around Insa-Dong was quite pleasant, we got to see a lot of Korean art and food. I'll certainly be returning at the end of the summer to pick up a few souvenirs before I leave Korea. Cindy left us around 3pm as she had to prepare for an interview on Monday.
When Cindy left had reached the end of the market. Han, Sara and myself decided to visit Changdeokgung Palace which was a 10 minute walk from Insa-Dong.
Changdeokgung Palace (also known as the East Palace) in one of the 5 royal palaces built in Seoul. The palace was completed in 1412 and occupies over 500 000 square meters of land. It was not the main Palace of the Korean Emperors, except for a period in the 18-19 century during which time the main palace was rebuilt following a Japanese invasion. I'll spare you the rest of the history of the palace. Check out Wikipedia for more information.
You have to visit the palace with a tour guide, you can't just wander around at your leisure. Unfortunately, there were no more English tours when we arrived so we took a Korean tour instead. It wasn't terrible as Sara was able to translate the most important aspects, but I still feel like I missed out on a lot of interesting things.
The palace itself was nice but I wasn't all that impressed. The buildings were interesting but not terribly ornate or impressive. The court yards were large, but again not all that impressive. After having visited large European palaces like Versaille and Shönbrunn and castles like Neuschwanstein, I was certainly underwhelmed. We couldn't go inside the buildings, we were forced to cram around the windows to see into the King's bedroom or the throne room.
The throne room was quite interesting though. In the video above, the throne room is the large building that I am facing at the beginning of the video. The room had beautiful wood working and beautiful paintings on the walls and ceilings. The throne was also identical to the one I saw at the National Museum of Korea. I had already snapped a few pictures of the throne room when Sara relayed to me that the painting behind the throne is the same image that is found on the 10 000 won bill. I took my camera out again to take a closer picture but it wouldn't turn on. I was terrified that I had already broken my new camera. Ends up the battery was just dead... 10 minutes into the 2 hour tour. Turns out plugging the camera into my computer doesn't charge the battery. "Lesson learned," thought the fool.
It really is unfortunate that my camera died because as unimpressive as the palace buildings may have been, the gardens were absolutely amazing. Changdeokgung is famous because it was not built like Versaille, in its symmetrical and artificial beauty, rather, it was built to be in harmony with its natural surroundings. I almost felt like I was at the cottage as we walked through the trees on the dirt path. The gardens are certainly a highlight of my trip so far. My favourite place in the gardens was a square pool with a circular island slightly off-centre. The pool represented the sky, and the island, the earth. The pool was set at the bottom of the hill and in front of the royal library. It just felt like the perfect place to relax and read a book in the shade on a summer afternoon.
After we finished visiting the palace we were pretty tired. We then had to choose what to do before dinner. We had two options, go to a traditional tea house in Insa-Dong or go see the new Indiana Jones movie in Daehangno (we had talked about it the night before). I wanted to see the movie, but I also thought it would be a good to experience more Korean culture. None of us could really decide what to do, so I flipped a coin. Heads: Indiana Jones. Tails: Tea House. I caught the coin...Heads.
The movie experience is the same as in Canada, except for the Korean subtitles and the assigned seating. Oh and the chairs were built for Koreans, which meant that I had to sit with my knees up by my ears. The movie was a lot of fun, but I left the theater feeling conflicted, if you've seen the movie you probably know what I'm talking about. It was fun, but the story left you feeling...
After the movie we went out for supper. We had Tak Kalbi, which is like a chicken stir fry at your table with rice noodles and vegetables. After you've cleaned up most of the chicken and noodles they bring out some rice and they stir that in with the leftovers. It is by far my favourite food in Korea. And they use CHEESE. I was so happy when I saw the little bowl of grated yellow goodness. Korean's don't use cheese quite enough.
After supper we made our way back to the dormitory and that was that.
You can see the rest of my pictures from Daehangno and Insa-Dong here.
After we finished visiting the palace we were pretty tired. We then had to choose what to do before dinner. We had two options, go to a traditional tea house in Insa-Dong or go see the new Indiana Jones movie in Daehangno (we had talked about it the night before). I wanted to see the movie, but I also thought it would be a good to experience more Korean culture. None of us could really decide what to do, so I flipped a coin. Heads: Indiana Jones. Tails: Tea House. I caught the coin...Heads.
The movie experience is the same as in Canada, except for the Korean subtitles and the assigned seating. Oh and the chairs were built for Koreans, which meant that I had to sit with my knees up by my ears. The movie was a lot of fun, but I left the theater feeling conflicted, if you've seen the movie you probably know what I'm talking about. It was fun, but the story left you feeling...
After the movie we went out for supper. We had Tak Kalbi, which is like a chicken stir fry at your table with rice noodles and vegetables. After you've cleaned up most of the chicken and noodles they bring out some rice and they stir that in with the leftovers. It is by far my favourite food in Korea. And they use CHEESE. I was so happy when I saw the little bowl of grated yellow goodness. Korean's don't use cheese quite enough.
After supper we made our way back to the dormitory and that was that.
You can see the rest of my pictures from Daehangno and Insa-Dong here.
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