Visiting 서울 (Seoul)

[This article contains Korean text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hangul or hanja.]

On Thursday, we left 킹스바둑 early in the morning. 김성래 took us to 서울. We did some shopping in 한국기원, and then went to a baduk club, which was rather empty because of holiday. In the evening, we went to IBA, where we were accomodated (thanks to Mr. 이기봉).

On Friday, we got up rather late, and went to 동대문시장. It was quite crowded, not too clean, and I didn’t feel like shopping. I left our undecisive group behind and went for a walk along 청계천. I was unpleasantly surprised to find the famous 남대문 hidden in a building (when Koreans repair a building, they build another building wrapped around it). Fortunately, 남대문 시장 was open and living. I bought a bulb blower (yes, I already succesfully cleaned my sensor!) and got wonderful 김밥 for just 2000. After that, I spent some time wandering the amazingly crowded and cozy streets of Namdaemun and finally emerged by 한국은행 화폐금융박물관. Then I went to visit 덕수궁, a small but nice palace with well groomed gardens and various tourist attractions. It was getting dark, and after watching an outside musical performance (horrible pop music, but so wonderfully Korean that I just had to stop and listen), I found 경복궁 closed. After buying some rice-based sweets (huge bag for 5k), I finished the day taking pics of random passersby in a random nightlife area. A cute girl who studies dancing helped me resolve a problem with subway (the line bifurcates, some trains go to 상일 and some to 마천, I didn’t know which one I was in).

Side note on Hangul (aka Korean letters): I’ve been in Korea for well over a month, and I couldn’t read anything. I didn’t even bother trying. I knew Korean letters were complicated. When the frogeater told me that there were just 14 consonants and 10 vowels (grand total of 24 letters), I was very surprised. Well, I learned Hangul in about 15 minutes, because – behold – the letters are not only very few, they are also logical (Hangul is artificial alphabet!) and easy to remember. I’m angry at myself for not having done this a long time ago.

Saturday, right. Having experienced the immobility of our group the day before, me and the frogeater set out to visit the royal shrine. What was our surprise when we stumbled upon a park full of baduk players! It wasn’t too easy to get a game at first, but once I started playing, observers came (a white guy playing baduk, w00t), and after I killed my opponent all over the board (I gave him 5 stones, he was like european 8kyu) everyone was suddenly interested in playing me. I still won most of my games, as these guys lacked any sense of style, but they fought relentlessly. I quickly lost frogeater somewhere in the crowd (obviously, everyone wanted to play him as well).

Several games and one lunch later I decided that was it, and finally went to see 종묘. There I met a group of European girls (1 Slovak, 3 French) who had a Korean guide that spoke fluent English. I’m still not sure whether the guide was paid or free for all, but I was invited to join them, so I didn’t refuse ;). I proceeded with the girls (one of them even pretended to be interested in go!) to visit 창경궁 and its vast gardens. Then I made a mistake, I parted with the girls, intending to visit the other palace – 창덕궁. This palace had only one open entrance with a hostile guard who didn’t want to let me in and refused to speak English. Finally, one tourist gave me some paper with info on how to get in – there’s a guided tour just thrice a day, otherwise tough luck. Can’t recommend this palace.

I read a lot of praise about 북촌한옥마을, so was looking forward to it. I felt I was close, but couldn’t quite locate it exactly. After asking the locals about 북촌, they said that I was already there. Turns out, there are historical houses, but they amount for about 5% of randomly placed houses in this quarter. However, I got lucky and met friendly westerners who gave me a nice map of the broader center with pictures of interesting stuff. That map is really good. All maps should have pictures. Well anyway, then I continued on my way only to find out that the museums have mostly been closed already (it was about 6pm), but at least I visited 경복궁. After wandering around aimlessly for a while, a nice middle aged American lady asked me whether I needed help. She’d moved to 서울 recently, but already knows her way around pretty well. We went for a nice Chinese dinner. Then I headed for 인사동 where I bought traditional Korean sweets consisting of nuts wrapped in strings of sugar, which the American lady recommended. Again finished the day shooting random people in the streets, this time in the infamous 명동 nightlife area. This time it rained. Rain is always good for photos. I was lucky enough to catch the last subway.

Sunday was the last day for sightseeing. I got up early (well, half past eight) and headed for the museums. First I went to 국립고궁박물관, which has free entry in 2009, as a celebration of 100 years of its history. It was pretty cool, they even allowed photography (“no flash and no tripod”). Then I went to nearby 국립민속박물관, which had nice outside part showing how people lived in various times in Korean history, and inside part with several expositions. After watching traditional dance (there was some sort of EOS 5d users meeting, there were at least 20 ppl, lenses ranging from tiny primes to huge zooms, all with the impossible-to-overlook red stripe). Then I went to the baduk park again. On my way I met a friendly Korean engineering student looking for some English practice. He walked me to the park and gave me a lot of valuable info about 한국. After playing few games in the park, I got cold, so I went to find some food. I happened to stumble upon a baduk club, where I stayed for just 3k. I got to play many people, one was really strong (beat me two times easily) but the rest were pretty weak. Although I was rather tired and my back hurt pretty bad from the hours of slow walking during the last three days, I went for one more walk along 청계천, and didn’t regret it.

All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with how the trip turned out, I have just two complaints:

• complete lack of waste bins; I was told it’s because of the threat of terrorism (typical Korean overreaction)
• annoying notices about H1N1 and various countermeasures (overreaction again, Mexico, where H1N1 originated and which was hit worst, has only 33000 cases (0.02% of population), and 350 deaths (1% of the infected people die))

[Edit:] You can (and should!) see my photos from Seoul!