Yvette’s Vox

After my last post, our vacation in Korea became busier with visits to family and shopping and so on. Or maybe jet lag set in, because I found myself crashing by 10 each night. Whatever the reason, I didn't get around to posting more pictures and finishing the story of our trip, and I feel like I need to close that thread before moving on, so here it is if anyone is still interested: the Korea Wrap-up.

Quite coincidentally, our visit to Korea coincided with the annual Harvest Festival known as Chu Seok. This was a good thing in that we got to experience and share in several feasts and cultural traditions, including paying respects to our ancestors.

Paying Respects

The downside to being in Seoul during one of the biggest holidays of the year is that many places we would have like to visit were closed or operated on limited schedules, and the traffic was so bad (even by Seoul standards) that day trips out of the city became practically impossible. Chu Seok is a lot like our Thanksgiving in that everyone and their grandmothers and children travel to visit relatives. The one day that we drive out of the city to visit the monument and tomb of my great-grandfather, we spent a lot of time in traffic.

Holiday madness notwithstanding, James and I were rarely left to our own devices. We had one evening, ironically on Chu Seok itself, that we returned to the hotel early enough to have time to wander down Insa-dong during the festival. We forgot to take the camera, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the color and the crowds and the street vendors. I do remember seeing groups of families and young people out enjoying the fine evening, nibbling on snacks like sweetened bean paste, shikeh (a sweetened rice drink), and fried silkworm chrysalises (I kid you not).

We also unfortunately forgot to take our cell phone with us, and by the time we got back to the hotel room, my mom and Kun-emo ("mother's eldest sister") had left 8 messages on the phone to check in with us. They were apparently concerned that we would be unable to find dinner for ourselves, and would most likely be robbed or kidnapped and sold into slavery...

But I really have no complaints about our time there in Korea or how we were treated. My mother's family, especially Kun-emo and my Uncle Peter (my mother's youngest brother whom I should properly call chagun-wey-samchun) and their families, were so warm and affectionate and hospitable. Despite my mixed heritage and the Korean reputation for xenophobia, I felt welcomed and accepted at every turn. In fact, I finally understood that, because my mother married an American and never became part of a different Korean clan, she is considered to have never "left" the Min family. And so by extension I belong to the Min clan too, and so does James. And that's very cool.

One of these days I'll get around to uploading more photos...

Whew! I finally have a chance to catch up! Every day so far has been pretty busy with sightseeing, visiting family, and being stuffed with more big meals than I can remember. I can't speak a lick of Korean, but one phrase I have learned is chal mogo sumida, which means "I have eaten very well, thank you" (i.e., "I'm full! No mas, no mas, for the love of god!"). I can say that easily half of what I've eaten wasn't identified to me and I still don't know what it was, but everything has been very tasty and nothing's killed me yet. ;-) In fact, James and I are both feeling really good because the majority of Korean cuisine is very healthy: vegetables, soups, lots of kinds of kim chee and other ban chan (side dishes), and meat and fish that is grilled, broiled, or steamed rather than fried. Even what we consider as "traditional Korean BBQ" in the West is not the same here. We went out to a kalbi steakhouse last night, and I've found that local kalbi is much less sweet and saucy; you can taste the meat more, and you can even get it without marinade. Instead you grill the plain ribs, then dip the pieces in sea salt and wrap that up in lettuce with a roasted garlic clove and a spicy condiment. It was excellent!

Enough about food... Places we've seen so far include Gyeongbok Palace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyeongbok_Palace), which is a UN world heritage site and right across the street from our hotel. Here's the first gate entrance to the throne court:

Palace_Entrance

The day we were at Gyeongbokgung, there were hordes of schoolchildren there on field trips. They must have been from outside Seoul, because they were quite fascinated by Westerners, and any time they saw us or other caucasians walking around, they'd start calling out "Hellohellonicetomeetyou!" It reminded me a bit of when I was in the Peace Corps in Africa, and the sight of a white person would without fail cause a stir among hordes of local kids (though in Mauritania, they'd chase after you begging for coins). One particularly brave group of little girls came up to us and asked to take a picture with us using their camera phones. I think it's amazing that these kids have cell phones and iPods grafted to their heads, and yet the sight of a haole still elicits a reaction.

Kids_at_Gyeongbok

What you can't see in these pictures is how incredibly hot and humid it's been, very monsoon-like. The first part of this week rained a lot, and the rain itself was the warm tropical kind that makes you wet but doesn't cool you off. Typhoon Wipha battered the east China coast around Shanghai, and Korea has been feeling the peripheral effects. Yesterday the weather finally started to improve, with a nice breeze and less humidity. Luckily our hotel room has A/C, or I'd have melted!

Gyeongbokgung is significant to me because Emperor Gojong of Korea reigned here before he was forced to abdicate his throne to the Japanese in 1895. His wife was Empress Myeongseong of Korea, also known as Queen Min, and she was my great-grandfather's cousin. She was assassinated by the Japanese because of her efforts to keep Korea independent, and she is considered a national hero. I must say, it was very trippy to walk in the places and courts where this famous ancestor had lived!

Gyeongbok_Throne_Hall_Ceiling

After a full day in Seoul, we are comfortably settled in our hotel and mostly unjetlagged. I think that if you change enough time zones (in this case, +16 hours), you can sort of just skip to the next night, sleep through, and call it a wash. Of course, the discovery of a Starbucks in our hotel has helped too. ;-)

I have no pictures to upload today because yesterday was spent mostly with my relatives, but James and I picked up a few initial impressions.

First, old town Seoul (where my aunt lives) is this wonderful hodgepodge of tiny, crammed shops and old hadaboji (grandfather) street vendors, and small, steamy noodle shops mixed together with fashionably dressed young professionals with iPods and cell phones and laptops. It feels very much like someplace out of a William Gibson or Neal Stephenson novel, very cyberpunk, and I suppose that makes sense since these authors were influenced by cities like Tokyo and Seoul and Shanghai. Makes me want to prowl the streets and back alleys dressed like Trinity from The Matrix (as long as I could look like her too, of course).

Second, drivers in Seoul are extremely adept at getting places with a minimal amount of space and time wasted on trivialities like maintaining any kind of distance between vehicle quarter-panels or staying between lane stripes. As James observed, painted lanes exist simply to indicate how many cars may be expected to occupy a given width of road at a time. Remarkably, we saw very few banged up cars on the streets; that is, people are driving like maniacs in very nice sedans. James says the trick is probably to be hyper-aware of the exact dimensions of your car at all times. Everyone drives aggressively, but everyone is also expecting it. The scariest thing is that James says he thinks he could get to like driving here... Luckily for us (and for the unsuspecting people of Seoul), we haven't had a reason to test James' "Ricky-Bobby" driving potential. We've been going around in either cabs or my uncle's car. He employs a chauffeur, as many business people do here, and I must say that it's pretty damn cool to have a private driver and car sent round to your hotel to take you places!

Today we are meeting my aunt and my mother to get down to the business of sightseeing... I'll write more soon! ;-)

We're in' Tokyo! Or to be more precise, we're in the Red Carpet Club in the United terminal at Narita Int'l Airport, trying to stay awake thru a 3-hour layover before our flight to Seoul. Had a really lovely flight from Seattle, thanks to being in Business Class. I can't imagine how I'd have survived the 10-hr flight in Economy, so I will either have to get wealthy or resign myself to not seeing much of the world while I hoard frequent flyer miles for upgrades.

The last time I was in Japan was as a child, so this is all new to me. And of course, long before 9/11 and the new security rules. We had to go through a security checkpoint again coming off the flight, even though we aren't leaving the gates. But tightened security can't stop commerce, as evidenced by the blinding array of duty-free shops crammed between gates: Tiffany, Hermes, Sony, as well as the usual cosmetics, liquor, and cigarettes. I saw a big display for Suntory Whiskey which reminded me of Bill Murray's performance in Lost In Translation, and the electronics store was swarming with young Japanese men with hilarious Dragonball Z haircuts, but by far the most interesting thing I've seen so far is the automatic beer dispenser here in the Red Carpet Club. Why don't we have these??

Beer_dispenser

For whatever reason, taking a trip to a foreign country seems to be the catalyst for all sorts of personal changes, some of which have nothing to do with travel. I leave for Korea on Sunday, and in the weeks leading up to this trip I have overhauled my wardrobe, redecorated two rooms in my house, and written more than I have in the last year. I've  downloaded music and games for the first time, and now I've started this blog. Yes, folks, she can be taught! :-)

So, ladies (and you know who you are, Fab Four!), here's the beginning of the blog. I'll try to post regularly, and of course I'll upload photos during the Korea trip. Hopefully this will be fun to read. I've no doubt that eventually I'll get hooked on this as much as my other geeky interests...