Korea Pt.5 - Daegwang-Ri (part2)

Since much of our tour, led by Ellen`s dad, and seemingly much of life close to the DMZ, revolves around the military and the Korean War i decided to group together these photos into one post of that theme. It was not in fact ALL we saw or did in and around Daegwang-Ri, but it was a prominent part.

One of the first places Ellen`s dad took us was to a war museum which was closed for New Years. So we looked around the grounds and memorials outside. This was only one of many types of planes there:


And this was only one of many tanks on the premises:


This memorial was very interesting, and very large as well. Someday i would like to have a full (English) explanation of the symbolism in this sculpture.


This is one of the militray checkpoints that we came across frequently during our tour. Actually i think this might have been the one that we tried to get through to see the DMZ. We were told that it was closed for New Years Day and that if we went back up the road a ways and told the commander at the soldiers rest station that we had our family grave within the limits than we could be granted permission. So that`s what we did.


In typical Asian-ness the soldiers` rest station had a collection of "cute" mascots that adorned the sides of their buildings and stations:


This was the last photo we could take before they took our cameras away from us and escorted us past the checkpoint and up to the observatory. If the soldiers look young it`s becuase they are; all Korean men are required to do two years of mandatory military service.


Now this picture was taken in the early hours of January 2nd in Daegwang-ri town just outside Ellen`s parents` place. I took it for two reasons: 1) to show how small and rural the town is (and how much it reminds me of most small towns in the Maritimes in Canada - except with more Hangul writing), and 2) because i found it more than a little disturbing that there was a shop with "Nuk" on the sign so close to the broder with North Korea.


And also, right in front of the train station, an army jeep and an army surplus supply store. The military presence really permeates life here in Daegwang-ri.

Korea Pt.4 - Daegwang-Ri (part1)

So i`ve had a crazy busy last couple of weeks. after snowboarding in Shiga, my friend Scooter (aka DJ Bolivia) came from Canada to DJ at Oasis Lounge (which i set up for him here in Osaka). Snedker (Kevin) and Danielle also came down from Tokyo and a bunhc of us hung out for a few days and then all went up to Tokyo for another few days. and then i came back and worked and planned and schemed (some of which is secret so i cannot divulge here as yet until perhaps later in Spring!). today is in fact my only day off this week (i know that i had five days off when Scooter et al. were here buut that was exhausting!) so i am going to try and play a little blog ketsup. i mean, "catch up," i`m just really hungry.

AND SO: i give you, for your viewing interest and long over-due, pictures from Daegwang-Ri, a small town North of Seoul in Korea, and close to the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) between the two Koreas. it is also, more inportantly, Ellen`s home town and where her incredibly nice family lives and works. her mom runs a restaurant close to the train station (actually, truth be told, Daegwang-Ri is prettty small, so just about everything in town is "close to the train station"), and her father is a police officer (and a pretty high rank from what i gather). her brother was also there, but i won`t even try to spell his name because i am sure i will get it completely wrong. Ulala and i stayed in their house/apartment, above the restaurant, and were treated to a lovely couple of days and a LOT of great Korean food. most of these pictures are from December 31st and January 1st.

This was the train line we took out into the sticks North of Seoul. it felt like a bit of an Odyssey since we were tired from sightseeing and to connect to this train line we had to go all the way to the end of the longest line (a little NOFX reference there for those who know). it was also late and we missed our first connection so we had to wait about an hour until the next one. so in reality i guess it isn`t all THAT far out of Seoul.


This was the sulfur hot spring that Ellen`s mom and brother took us to. It was great! the men and women had separate areas for the baths. We tried the hot bath and then the steam room and then the cold bath (FREEZING!) and then the hot bath again. Then we dried off and met up the girls and tried some of the dry saunas (like the "Ochre Chamber" and the "Salt Chamber" among others) and ate some fruit and watched the New Years countdown on the big TV in the lounge area. All in all a pretty good and refreshing welcome in the new year!


On January 1st Ellen`s dad took us around the region to show us some historical sites (most of which pretained to the Korean War. i was amazed at how fresh the wounds still are since it is a war that i know little about. Most of the places we visited (like the observatories that look into North Korea) prohibited photography, so there are only a few pictures to show. This one is of a bell that sits atop a hill that is close to the DMZ. Near the bell is a plaque extolling the virtues of the many brave men who died trying to capture and re-capture a particular hill.


This was a temple that we visited on "Dad`s Tour". It was closed for New Years but we still had a chance to walk around the grounds. Next to the temple was a beautiful frozen river and valley.


From Left: Ulala, Ellen`s brother, me, Ellen`s dad and mom, Ellen, and Hubert, Ellen`s boyfriend. This spread is a good example of the fabulous food we were treated to at almost every meal.


and THIS, beleive it or not, was breakfast!! spicy meat soup and... some other stuff. it was actually quite good! I`m used to having hot sauce ono my eggs in the morning so spicy breakfast was nothing new to me. I think Ellen`s mom especially liked my appetite for spicy food. =)

Snowboarding in Shiga

Still more posts and pics coming from our trip to Korea but i thought i`d share some of the pictures from last Sunday`s outing to Shiga fro some snowboarding. The winter here has been super mild so the snow isn`t great but it was still nice to get out on the hill again for a little practice. We`ll probably try and go once again this month before Spring officially makes its comeback. According to the old Japanese calendar Spring actually started last week with "Setsubun," an awesome festival which involves throwing beans at demons to drive them out of your house while shouting "Oni wa soto!! Fuku wa uchi!!" (lit: "Demon out! Fortune in!") For boarding we went up to Shiga, to a hill called Hakodate-yama, on Lake Biwa (the biggest lake in Japan), which you could see as you went down the short runs. The view was amazing and the weather was nice, whic hmade up for the crappy rental gear and mediocre snow. Also, perhaps most important, the company was good. We were invited by two friends of ours here in Osaka, and it was great to get a chance to hang out with them outside of a bar or niteclub! =) Enjoy the pics!

Korea Pt.3 - Day 2 in Seoul

On December 31st we woke up nice and early at the StayKorea Guest house and headed out into Seoul. Ellen took us to "Leeum : Samsung Museum of Modern Art" using some tickets that her uncle had given her. The gallery is owned by the Samsung family and is a spectacular gallery. As one might expect from a gallery that bears the Samsung moniker, the technology was wild. We got (free with our corporate tickets - thank you Ellen`s uncle!!) a digital audio guide that hangs on a chord around your neck. Now, audio guides are nothing new, but these digital ones were amazing. They had a touch-screen that you activated in your choice of over half a dozen different languages. As you aproached any particular work an infra-red sensor in the floor would trigger the guide to begin speaking about that individual piece. You could pause, stop, go back or skip any part of the guide by simply walking to another work and standing near the little black circle in the floor. The only flaw in the system was that if you wanted to wander off a bit from the work you were hearing about and pehaps got a little too close to another one, the guide would switch to the new piece suddenly, causing me to backtrack a few times to hear something to its conclusion. The audio guide also allowed for a lot more detail on each piece and its importance in teh exhibition. We went through two separate wings of the gallery. One was housing a special exhibition of traditional Korean pottery and a whole room filled with fascinating Buddhist artifacts of cultural and historical importnace to Korean Buddhism, something which interests me greatly but that i know little about. The other gallery was dedicated entirely to "modern art" - installations, abstract painting and multi-media works, mostly by Korean artists heavily influenced by or influential to Western artists. The gallery`s purpose seemed in large part to show the tandem between Western and Asian (especially Korean) modern art. Hubert pointed out, and rightly so i believe, that this shows that success in art, at the end of the day, is essentially marketing. Many of the Korean works were just as impressive and just as pioneering, though most of the names were new to me. I did recognize most of the Western artist names, though. The audio guide proved itself invaluable in this section since modern art remains somewhat esoteric to laymen like myself who enjoy but cannot even pretend to understand. My favorite piece in this wing was a massive painting by Choi Wook-Kyung from 1977, "Untitled". I might see if i can find some of her work online to put in a future blog post.

After the gallery we went down to Myeong-Dong to have a superb Bibimpa (mixed rice bowl) lunch and wander around shopping and checking out the city. Here are some odds and ends from the day:

Outside the gallery there were these two spidery sculptures. Alas, i forget at this moment the artist`s name but some of his (her) work in this spidery series are also installed outside Roppongi Hills in Tokyo.


This is Hubert and Ellen in one of the only photos i was allowed to take inside the gallery.


Bibimpa lunch (i`m sure i`m spelling the dish name wrong but oh well...)




Seoul Tower, which made me rather homesick for the CN Tower - something i never really expected to feel!


The crowds in Myeong-Dong looking for cheap goods. I didn`t see anything that seemed worth buying, but i wasn`t looking for discount brand name bags or jewellery. I did buy a nice ring, though. Cost me about 4 bucks Canadian.


This was an interesting sight. In preparation for New Years Eve festivities, some people were selling roman candle fireworks on the street super cheap. Later on we would watch on TV as hundreds of thousands of people would gather in the downtown area for concerts and the Countdown. Many of these people would be holding these fireworks over their heads and firing them into the air, right smack in the middle of downtown, between the skyscrapers. In this picture you can see they are left unattended in front of some phonebooths while the vendor is just out of frame negotiating the price with some customers.


There were also a rather surprising number of street vendors like this one selling LOTS of stuffed animals. Either Koreans are somewhat obsessed with cutesy stuffed dolls or this is a key date spot that i was unaware of. The same thing appears in Osaka (though not quite so many of these vendors) in places where guys are likely to be convinced to buy something soft and cute to impress a girl they are in need of impressing.


And this is the East Gate. The one you have likely seen in pictures of Seoul is actually the South Gate, but the East Gate is certainly also dramatically impressive (if somewhat smog-stained) as it squats amongst the equally massive shopping centers and disused Olympic stadiums, a quick-moving river of traffic swirling around it.

Korea Pt.2 - Dinner and drinks in Seoul.

Well... I think i might be putting "Better late than never to the test", eh? Oh, by the way, season 5 of "24" was good. But i still like the first and second more. Now i`m watching "Supernatural." It`s pretty good but also rather X-Files-ish. meh.

SO... Back to Seoul. After we had a great yaki-niku dinner we went and had some drinks at a bar that Ellen`s friends took us to. Yaki-niku is the Japanese word for BBQ meat grilled right there on a little coal or ghas hibachi on the table in front of you. I`m afraid i don`t know the Korean word for it. They told me. I just don`t remember. In English it`s usually called #Korean BBQ. In Japan it is usually done with thin slices of beef but we found in Korea it was most often pork. It`s a great social meal and we had fun while Ellen`s friend, Ki Seob taught us how to eat it properly, wrapping the small grilled meat in a lettuce leaf with some sauce or one of the various side dishes.

The sheer amount of eating and drinking that goes on in Korea is insane. It makes both the mind and stomach reel. After dinner, the custom is to change venue and drink - while eating more! I swear i ate a whole second meal with the drinks! In Korea it is customary to eat when you drink. People, from what i understand, almost never just drink. I really don`t know why Japan has Sumo and Korea deosn`t because i would have expected a LOT more fat people from this lifestyle. We played a few drinking games, and drank "soju", the Korean liquor (around 18 to 25 % depending on brand and quality). As smooth as Soju is i had to switch to beer after a couple shots or teh next day would have beeen a write-off. Glad i did too, since we had a big day coming. Enjoy the pictures of Ellen`s friends and i`ll try and post more pics from Korea soon. (don`t you roll your eyes!) In case you might get confused easily, i`m the white guy. =)








Soju, man. It`s dangerous stuff!




we found these staues outside a shop in Myeong-Dong (a shopping area popular with tourists) and i couldn`t resist.


the funniest part of this one is that the sign above his head says "OK Cashbag". the Blues Brothers would`ve been proud.

La Bomba... it`s da bomb

best name and/or shape for an energy drink ever:



more about Korea coming soon... promise. right now there just aren`t enough hours in the day. oy.

Korea Pt. 1 - Afternoon in Seoul

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

Well, as usual better late than never!

Ulala and i had a wonderful trip to Korea, and it was a very full and busy trip to be sure. 5 days and 4 nights can add up to a lot of photos and a lot of memories, more than i could hope to convey here. But i will put up a few separate posts about our trip. they may or may not be in any kind of cohesive order... =)

We flew into Seoul on December 30th and were met by Ulala`s close friend Ellen and her boyfriend Hubert (from Canada). After that we went to drop our stuff at the guesthouse and then to meet Ellen`s other friends and do some shopping and sightseeing and whatnot. Everyone was very nice. Of course i didn`t understand a lot of what was said amongst the Koreans but it was alright since they were all pretty good about trying to communicate. Also Hubert and Ulala speak no Korean so we talked a fair bit and had excellent translators in Ellen and one of her friends who speaks English (spent some time Calgary oddly enough). Korea was very interesting and this short trip has just whet my appetite to go back and explore a little more thoroughly. It was impossible for me not to draw comparisons between Japan and Korea, even though that is not always fair to either culture. But there are certainly a lot of interesting and sometimes quite humorous similarities and differences between the two. I`ll try to avoid an amateur compare and contrast expository digression and stick mostly to explaining the pictures. =)


Here are some random pics from our fairly random first afternoon in Seoul:

I`m Cappuccino. Like in Japan, the Koreans have a knack for humorous use of English in their packaging. Not quite as rampant as in Japan but still just as funny. Also note the redness of my fingers, an early indicator of just how frigging cold it was (and also why i bought the cheap can of canned coffee.



In the rather sketchy (but not too bad) neighborhood of the guesthouse were these old arcade machines, still in use. As you can see by Ulala standing next to them, they`re so little! Even sitting on the bench to play one has to kind of hunch over to see the screens! Not to mention the fact that they are outside in the below zero weather, perhaps explaining why we saw no one playing them. Ever.



Ellen`s friends took us to this great area called Insadon, which is a little touristy but has lots of great things to see and do. One of those things is the "Wake Up Andy Warhol" building, which consists of a wide courtyard surrounded by an semi-outdoor mall that wraps around in a slowly rising spiral up to some cafes at the top and is all filled with fashion boutiques, craft shops and galleries. And, as the name might suggest, it was also filled with lots and lots of modern art, often as a tribute to or derivative of the works of Andy Warhol. There were even busts of Warhol in some of the shops. The courtyard contained this massive work of umbrellas, all silkscreened with icons and symbols of modern culture.



This place naturally lends itself to various Mary Poppins jokes...



And these sculptures lend themselves to Oompa Loompa jokes. fun fun.



Outside the mall, just to round out the randomness of the place was this lovely young woman offering free hugs. yup. hugs. for free. Apparently it`s part of some campaign to help fight against the alienation and separation caused by an increasingly technology-dependent and emotionally distant society. And who am i to say no to a free hug?



Also very similar to Japan were the massive numbers of street vendors selling everything from knock-off designer goods to snacks of all sorts and sizes, in fact there were many more than in Japan, i think. We tried a variety of traditional Korean sweets and snacks, including some of these roasted chestnuts (which are also very popular in Japan). If you haven`t had roasted chestnuts or maybe haven`t had them in a while, since they seem to have lost popularity in North America, try them! they are so good!



I have no idea what this monument is. Nor were any of the people i asked about it particularly informed about its origin or purpose. It was right smack in the middle of a major shopping area too. But on reflection i doubt i could tell you the purpose of even half of the monuments in Toronto. And the people i was with were much more interested in finding i nice warm bar to hang out in.




There will be more pictures forthcoming, if and when Ulala and i can tear ourselves away from watching the 5th season of 24 on DVD. =)