Heart to Seoul. Sorry

Money is confusing. When you buy a couple of Japanese beers and a 500 ml. plastic bottle of strong  “wine” (it is called soju – originally based on potatoes but now probably just chemicals) in a convenience store and they  say “Eight” they mean 8,000 Won. That is nearly as daft as some of the South-East Asian countries, not the sort of currency you get in a “developed” country.  For the record, there about 1,800 to the pound (and, these days, 180 to the RMB) or 1,200 to the USD, so not a bad price really. As a bottle of beer is more than a bottle of soju I might be stocking up on the wine for when I venture out of Seoul.

Seoul is a new city. It was founded over 700 years ago but in 45 years of Japanese occupation they tried to destroy as much of the Korean national identity as they could. What that failed to destroy 3 years of Civil War, when the city changed hands four times, did destroy.  Old streets are thirty years old, all the palaces (there are five, or maybe six, of them in the city) have been completely rebuilt in the last fifty years.

The metro is odd (they are about the only country to follow the yanks on this and call it the subway but I am sticking to the universal term) because of escalators. There is a very big system; it seems to work and the main part looks as if it was completed for the 1988 Olympic Games. Every station I have been in so far has escalators but none of them do anywhere near half the height from the platform to the street.  The many steps are quite steep and you see a lot oldies (real ones, not like me) pulling themselves, very laboriously, up the handrail for quite a long time.

Today I thought that I would do my cultural tour and go to two or three palaces and, maybe a shrine. Logically I got the metro to the farthest with a view to walking back to my dosshouse.

The furthest also happens to be the most popular and “oldest.” The original was 14^th Century but there was nothing left after 1953 so it is a complete replica. Frankly I can’t tell the difference between Chinese designs and Korean except the colours here do not indicate the dynasty (there was only one from the 14^th century until the Japanese invasion in 1910) and the Koreans are not as fond of dragons as the Chinese and some other countries – remember in the East the dragon is a goodie. This meant that I didn’t find it that different or interesting. It was also crowded – the only thing to rival the number of selfie sticks was the number of tour group flags or, in many cases, toy animals on sticks. The reason that there were so many toy animals was the huge number of school kid groups – some no more than three or four years of age. It was busy when I got there at 10.00 but when I left at 11.30 it was absolutely heaving. The Koreans have many of the traits of the Chinese including that their kids should be being “educated” at all possible times in all possible ways. The palace is called Gyeongbokgung and I would give it a miss if I were you. The best bit is outside and free. At 10.00 they changed the guard on the gate. The “guards” are all dressed up in silly outfits and false beards. There is some music and they march up and down a bit with a few drums being banged. Quite entertaining.

Had to wander into town a bit to get a reviver and then back to the palace next door – Chandeokgung. This has many similar features but a more relaxed layout and about 1% of the people – well maybe 2%, but no more. The bosses preferred this gaff because it has a damn nice garden. The trouble today is you can only go in the garden in a tour group. There are eight tours a day in Korean, two in Chinese, one in Japanese and four in English. This worked out OK timing wise BUT. The guide spoke too fast and her pronunciation wasn’t clear (she had a two minute speech about a tree that I thought she called “baobab” – only found in Africa – then maobab –never heard of it; it was only when I asked her off microphone that I found it she was saying mulberry, as in silkworm food).   Also she was only interested in telling you about the buildings in the garden (what they were called who built them, when and why – the sort of stuff you haven’t a hope in hell of remembering) and not giving you any time to wander round and look at the trees (160 types) or look for the wildlife. A shame really, because it is a nice garden.

Despite that, the palace was still preferable to the scrum of the morning. One feature that I found irritating in both palaces is that you are not allowed inside any of the buildings – you can look from the outside. The ceilings are often the most interesting parts and in most, but not all, “old” buildings in China you can go inside.

And so to the Jongmyo Royal Shrine. Er no. This is the same mularky – it is a big garden and you can only go in tour groups, I arrived at 4.25 – the last tour of the day in English was at 4.20. I could see the people about 100 metres away but no – this is Korea and things run on time – if you are too late, you are too late.

So stroll back to the dosshouse via a very large market whose second most popular product was seaweed - a long, long way behind dried fish. It was 5.00 and everything was open but nobody was buying. There were about 1% of customers per stall holders. The only person I saw spending money was me – on a reviver naturally.  So was it the end of the day or the beginning – I will go back one evening to see.

There is a reason I refer to my clean, tidy, well-run guesthouse as a dosshouse, Think size – if you have stayed in a cheap place in Hong King you will know what I mean. Total floor area is about 20 square metres (it is a “double”) including an oversized shower room. The bed is next to the shower room wall and from the end of the bed to the full wall window is about twenty centimetres. There is no chair but there is a large flat screen TV. Unfortunately that is also on the wall next to the shower room. The only way to watch it would be to push the bed up against the window but the window frame would ensure a gap between the bed and the window that would need six pillows to fill. Good job I don’t watch TV.

Still it is clean, has a personal door locking service, includes lots of free toiletries and breakfast for 55 per night.  Mustn’t grumble.

Well I went back to the market at 7.30 p.m. and half the stores had packed up. Today (Saturday) at 11.00 there were a few people but the number of stallholders still substantially outnumbered the number of buyers. I suspect it is a wholesale market but even so how can they make a living?

Back to the Jongmyo shrine (I had bought a combined ticket and wasn’t going to waste money). A bit of luck – on Saturdays you don’t have to go on a tour. The shrine was much better than the palaces. There is a film with English subtitles explaining the ceremony for honouring the dead. In its time Korea has been dominated by Budhism but revolting Christianity is now the number 1 religion - although there are not too many obvious churches. However, the real underpinning of society is still Confucianism and that means honouring your ancestors.

 Confucius was a wandering would be Prime Minister who went from state to state with a few followers selling his skills. In this he was a conspicuous failure but his school of thought grew up with respect for ancestors (four generations so you probably had never met the oldest one or two generations) and order. To become a government official you had to learn all the thoughts that were set down. These were attributed to Confucius but written down after his death so who knows?

 The film displays the whole rigmarole and Korea is the only country that still performs it, all-be-it once a year not five times as of old when it used to take a week of solitary contemplation each time before the ceremony. So, if you come to Seoul go there on a Saturday and forget the palaces apart from the comedy changing of the guard.

Seoul has dozens of museums (there is even a tax museum) and I went to a couple. They are well presented but they don’t have any exhibits of real age. Time to wander into the city centre. Like all big cities (Guangzhou excepted) you can walk around the most parts because distances aren’t great. Think Marble Arch to The Tower or The Battery to Central Park. So, suitably revived, off I went and found a demonstration.

This was a very Korean affair. Everybody was sat down whilst they were harangued, there were polite ripples of applause and even the occasional shout but it was all very orderly. There were a few marshals with nothing to do and no cops but lots, and I mean lots, of cops in groups in the side streets, keeping out of the way.  I think the police outnumbered the few hundred people at the rally. Now here is the surprising bit – no shields, no batons and if they had guns they were very well concealed.

In my wanderings in the last couple of days I must have seen about 15 or 20 Starfucks but that is only one or two per cent of the coffee shops. I have seen two Bugger Kings (one is even marked on my tourist map) but no Pisser Hut, no Substandard, no Kill the Fucking Chicken and no McShit. I am sure there must be a few but they have the least coverage of any big city that I have been to.

These last two points have definitely raised my impression of Seoulites but it is time to get out of the city so off to the train station in the morning and get the first train to anywhere that sounds vaguely interesting.