Home

Well, back in New Hampshire. Lots of rain and wet. Considering that it was monsoon season and rain was expected daily in Korea, it was a good trip weather wise. Much more rain here...
It has taken me a couple of days to finalize this blog, as I have been suffering from a continuation of the GI issues that plagued me on the trip: fevers,excessive sleeping, lack of energy. Another day or two of this and it's time for medical intervention.

Now is the time for a bit of reflection, I suppose, as that is what these journeys are about to a certain extent. I guess I question that to some degree, as a lot of the reason I pursue travel is for the immediate stimulus and surprise, rather than the long term reflective reasons. I believe that is true about me in general on lots of levels. But, reflectively, I'd have to say I enjoyed the trip and am grateful that I was fortunate to go, but Korea did not impress me as did China or Japan. Poor Korea. It is a fine place with friendly hard working people that has been sandwiched between these two east Asian powers playing second or third fiddle off and on for millenia. It's impressive that they haven't let that dim their zeal for overcoming that status. They are still driven in their hyper Confucian nationalistic way to improve. I can't help but think that with the normalization of the current high standard of living that they will ratchet back on their ambition before long. However, with the possibility (probability?) of reunification, they will probably not have the luxury of doing so.

Upgrade!

Business class!

I don’t know how this happened but I am now flying over the sea of Okhotsk on the second deck of a KAL 747. I’ve got no row of seats in front of me and a full reclining seat, video, the works. Maybe the best is that there are only 24 people up here and it has its own bathroom. Just lucky. I checked in with 4 other program participants and the guy asked if I could prefer a seat near the emergency exit (you have to be over 15 and physically able to handle the door,,,) and I said fine, and then he says it is on the 2^nd deck, which I have never even seen. I sort of anticipated it was classy up there but it is the nicest set up by far of anything I have done on a plane. Watched one movie so far but wanted to get this down before I went into full recline and possibly nodded off…will try and get photos when I deplane.

Now in Chicago, waiting for my final leg of flying to Manchester. Raining. Probably no views on the way home. Forgot to change my Won at the international terminal so took a bit of a hit, probably $15-20, for doing it in the domestic terminal. I at least was able to do it. Was fearing I’d have to do some kind of Littleton maneuver, which I’m sure would have been worse. Starting to board, gotta go.

Final day

Our final day had an open morning for the shoppers, of which there always seem to be many on these trips, but a number of us went to the Korean War Memorial and museum. It is a very impressive museum, one of the better museums I've visited. On the whole, the Korean museums are very well done. Well lighted, English available, high tech, uncrowded and informative. This one covered virtually every aspect of military history and present day military stuff in Korea. Interestingly, it is across the street from the US base that is right in Seoul that is scheduled to be relocated south of the city. The plan is to make the present base into a large city park. The museum had a nearly full size "turtle boat", lots of early gunpowder weapons, which Korea was the earliest to use extensively to defeat Japan a few times, even though outnumbered, and lots of real airplanes, artillery, etc inside and outside the building.

Outside is an impressive sculpture of Koreans done in the classic Greek frieze style, with smaller figures following ever larger ones marching forward. There is also a moving one of two brothers, one from each side, during the Korean war. I didn't have time to do the entire museum, which was a bummer, and unusual, because most of the time I run out of endurance before I run out of museum.

Had a big farewell dinner on the 27th floor of some building with a nice view, and went through the ceremonies of finishing up. The Korea Society group is staying on for another 3 days.

Back in Seoul

Well, this is likely to be short, got to meet the group soon and yesterday was largely a travel day. We left Gyeongju and took a tour of the Hyundai shipyard. Pretty much a bus ride within the complex. It's the biggest one in the world. Korea is far and away the world's biggest ship builder. Anyway, huge buildings that are really just cranes with roofs lifting a moving sheets of steel to be welded into components for sections that are welded together until it's a ship. THe scale of everything is what does it. The actual building looks pretty straightforward, but everything is so big and heavy. Some 40,ooo people work here in Hyundai city, and they build 100 ships annually.

After that we went to the Korean version of a super Walmart called Lotte Mart. It had interesting architure. 4 levels, groceries on floor 1 then more stuff going up. But each level had it's own parking lot, as you could use ethe parking garage to access any floor. Further, they had huge ramp like escalators that allowed you to take your shopping cart to the various levels. The shopping carts had special wheels that dropped into the ramp grooves and made a brake so that the carts were always stable on the escaltor ramp. That was the best part, I definitely should have been an engineer, this is the type of stuff that catches my interest.

Another tomb made the list of stops, this one a bit different from the others, but mostly becasue of it's rural location and the fact that it still had it's statuary.

Best part of the day, or at lest the most memorable, was beer and bulgogi in a small shop at the end of an alley behind the hotel. It was a point and nod meal. Bulgogi here was fish spam, partially cooked mega noodles in a type of barbecue sausce. It was much better than it sounds, and it was 6000 won for the whole deal, 3000 apiece.

Last day tomorrow, flight out Wed. AM.

King for a day!

Good morning. I'm developing a routine here in Gyeongjue of sneaking out of the room with the laptop, taking a walk and then blogging the previous day. Thatis, if you consider two days in a row a routine...we're out of here today. Off to tour Hyundae Industries and then cruise back to Seoul.

Yesterday was a day of tombs, temples and museums with a bit of teacher fun stuff thrown in. Lots of ancient Korean history here. The Silla royal family is the one credited with unifying the peninsula during the Chinese Tang dynasty, 700 something. This place is their home base, with many palaces and tombs related to their kings and queens. I got to wear a King's outfit that they had at this place where school field trips go to makes little pagodas made of soap and do rubbings of various hitorical thingns. I did the royal observatory and the great bell.

We started at the National Museum, or at least this city's version of it. Even though much smaller, the collection here was very accessible and I enjoyed it much more than the one in Seoul. Of course in Seoul I found a spot on the 4th floor where I could just sit and vege as I was ill. Here I was into the Buddha carvings and again, the skill of the curators to display the artifacts in some pretty spectacular architecture. In the back of one off the four buildings there is a collection of headless Buddhas, kind of an interesting approach... They didn't have any particular explanation for it, but had 3 overall themes. 1- that if a buddha statue is going to break, it will be a tthe weak point, the neck. 2- When the confucians came in and took over for a century or more off and on, they sometimes went on anti Buddhist rampages. (Bamiyan revisited...) 3- The Japanese, of course. Japan is a real historical bogeyman here, and not without reason. Their occupation from 1910-1945 is too recent and the effects too obvious for it to go away. It shows up time after time in place after place.

We got to go into a tomb that had been excavated. There is a section of the city that has these grave mounds and his one has been set up to allow visitors to see the construction from inside, along with some displayed artifacts of the king buried there. The crown I am wearing is representative of the style, and the robe is from paintings, which they commissioned regularly. (That last fact Ii believe is not accurate for the Silla, but is for the Josen, different dynasties.) Got to climb to the top of one after lunch, where we found beer cans and cigarette butts left from someone's lunch...

Went up a long and winding mountain road to a Buddha grotto. After conquering Korea, the Japanese had disassembled it to remove it and reasssemble it in Japan, but thendeecided to stay and colonize the whole peninsula. So they put it back together bt had a pile of leftover parts. Sounds like me and a car repair project. It was nice but too touristy for me.

On and on- to a Buddhist temple halfway down the mountain. Found out that the hanging fish in the Buddhist temple are rattled around from the inside...I'll have to Google that one.

Cool ending to the day was unexpected! AsI was sort of waiting around with a bunch of others organizing for a bit of socializing, i hear some one say "Fitz!" and I get this big kiss and hug. It was Blanche from my China trip. Ii knew that she was in Korea somewhere, but meeting in the lobby of the same hotel was quite a coincidental shock! Anyway, Mimi, from my Japan trip is co leading a trip with her and their group is here at the smae time. I ended up leaving my gang and joining up with theirs for a coffee and some catching up.

Drove up this windy mountain road to a Buddha

Morning in Gyeongue!

Early morning here outside the Hilton here they are having the 2009 “Save the Hair” symposium. Once again, I wish that I could figure out how to put the photos where I want them…
Yesterday was a long day on the bus. I felt a bit better though, and didn’t run out of energy until dinner time. Today I am up at 5 and walking around and sitting at the bus-stop typing. Pretty geeky, but there is practically no one up and around but a couple of joggers and cab drivers. More and more as I sit here, however, well past 6 now…
Yesterdays big event for me was the triptych Koreana, one of those places that just felt really cool. It’s a bit of a long story, but I’m sure I can brief it down. Back in the 1200’s, just before they did the metal type thing I talked about yesterday, Buddhist monks made wooden carvings of all the religious texts and put them into a huge library. It took over 20 years and there are over 80,000 of them. Not small, either. Each is about 1 foot by 30” and weighs about 8 pounds. They are all carefully marked and numbered. To keep them preserved, they took logs to the ocean and soaked them in sea mud for some period, to soften them and get them salty and mineraled enough to keep bugs away. Then they carved them and stored them, and this is the cool part, they located the “library" up on a mountain side where the breezes and mountain air would keep them preserved. So there a four large buildings just filled with these ancient carved boards. The “library” is surrounded by a temple compound with monks and other support facilities. I’ve always loved moving through big university libraries in the book stacks, but this is yet another step beyond, since the odor is kind of like an old barn. You can’t go in but the buidings are well ventilated and the old wood smell of these 80,000 carved boards all carefully shelved in a building made just for them in this beautiful place is really cool. I circled each buiding twice sticking my face up to the wooden "bars" and sniffing. I cannot think of an equivalent in Biblical, Koranic, or Talmudic writings, nor could the other teachers I conversed with. No idea about the Vedas, if that is even the correct term. Anyway, it’s a really neat collection of 800 year old boards…I was affected.
After that we made rice taffy at a village, ate a few times, walked around some lotus ponds and fed Koi, the huge goldfish they keep in the ponds here. I'm sure we did more that that as well, but still battling the intestinal crud, and the Buddhist temple was the star by far.

On the road!

Surreal nightmare at the moment, but comical. It’s 3:10 AM on July 4th and I am lying in bed at a Korean ski resort next to a guy named Ed who teaches outside St. Louis. Nice guy, but he has sleep apnea and snores like a chainsaw. I’ve now been sick for three days and am struggling through palace and museum visits trying not to lose it in he bus or in my pants… I’ve read about these types of things but have never experienced one myself. I just can’t seem to shake this bug. Decided that today was the day that I would go for the bip bap bop, a traditional Korean meal that usually contains meat. In fact, we had two big meals today, both which I ate about a cup or two of rice and vegetables. One was this spectacular buffet of stuff, but sadly, I could not take advantage. We are traveling south and then east, and will end up close to the east coast today. On the way we stopped at a restored palace and shot arrows. That was fun, [pretty kid like but it was absolutely a tourist fun thing at the restored palace thing… Then we continued south to a museum on the site of the fist known place in the world to produce metal type, beating Gutenberg by about 70 years. Both are UNESCO world historical sites, which seems to be big here, but I get thee feeling that Unesco is kind of a brand name” for authentic and important tourist site", kind of like piece of the park service in every congressional district…Still, I enjoyed the museum. It had the steps of making metal type all depicted in life size animated diorama form. The talking monks Adam’s apples moved, which I thought was a sign of high quality animatronics. The museum had lots of wood block prints as well, very intricate, all Buddhist texts, most training stuff for teaching new monks. The oldest metal printed book from this place is in France somewhere. The archery and the print museum were the main memories of the day although I did enjoy looking out the bus window between uncomfortable bouts of nausea.

The nationl museum I described below. Click on it and you get a bigger photo to get a better feel for the spectacular architecture.

Baseball!

Just got back from the LG Twins vs. the Busan Giants. Excellent game, Busan won by a run but it was all very alive until the final out. Quite a good group of teachers. They got pretty rowdy. On the way back from the gamee the bus had a karakoke machine and a light show. Not all that educational, but good cultural exchange. Similar to a Japanese game, but this time we sat right in the cheering section and whacked these "thunder sticks" and did the motions. They played in the olympic stadium from the 88 olympics.

Last couple of days have been very low for me, caught the travellers malady and didn't eat much of anything for two days. Last night I camee back early and did a 12 hour in bed attemt to beat it. It seems to be fading, today was a bit better.

The last two days have been lots of lectures, anyway, 2 today and 3 the day before, livened up with a museum visit and a play. The national museum is a very impressive building, I'll tyr again to get a photo in here, but proably won't be able to as I have tried yet another way to put in this photo.

DMZ!

Mr. Fitz at the DMZ!

Here's me next to the huge and tacky steel DMZ sign. Odd to have it painted in purple and pink...Our first stop was to take a tour of tunnel #3, a place where the North Koreans tried to tunnel beneath the demitlitarized zone from the north. Kind of an odd place to start, but we had already received a short lecture by an almost professor ex military American that explained some of the basics. Can't go wandering around here, wire fences with warnings about land mines are on both sides of the road. (photo above)

We had lunch with UN observers who said that on occasion that there will be an explosion in the DMZ, but they never know what happened, whether it was an animal etc. Right now things are quiet, especially since ethe latest tensions have cut the civilian activity in the area. It is very militarized, lot of guys with guns looking tough. We visited a number of facilities, a lookout post, the UN observers camp, and Panmunjom, the famous spot where the negotiations occur now and in the past. It's the place that you always see on TV or in magazines where the North Korean soldiers stare across at the South Korean soldiers with binoculars, etc. There have been a number of incidents here over the years. During the tour there is a moment where I was technically in North Korea, as the room is literally half in each side. Great photo op. It was a great day, lots of intellectual excitement in being here where so much history has taken place, but now that I am writing about it, it doesn't come across as the superficial reality of it is that we visited a bunch of buildings. However, if you have never been to WashingtonDC, the White House tour must be similar. It's beautiful as well, since no one can wander around much the animals and plants rule the place. We saw lots of egrets, cranes and deer, a Sibereian vampire deer? (need to google that...)

Got back and slept. I've got a touch of traveller's malady and didn't feel very well. Got up about nine and wandered the streets. Checked out a neighborhood near the river and walked along the river for a while. Had a green and white ice cream cone for dinner. No idea wha it was... Lots of tradtional style hot pot restaurants. Wish I could figure out how to put the photos where a I want them...

School Day!

Here I am again, past midnight and I' m sitting down just starting to write. Went to school today. Slept in late this morning and headed off to a Christian Foreign language school. It's a private school with three grades, our 10 - 12. It started off with introductions and then a mini concert by a couple of student bands, The first was a rock & roll Jesus band, just OK, followed by a traditional folk Korean band, which was really good. Spacy gong player, but a very charismatic lead cymbal player. Backed up by energetic drummers. Got toured around by a junior who spoke very well, Timothy. Pretty much their success in life is to get into one of the SKY universities- Seoul, Korea or Yonsei. They really bust themselves for it. They arrive at school at 7 and stay until 11. So 3/4 ths of the students, those not living on campus are gone for 18 hours. Not a lot of sleep or social time. They seemed happy and immature to me, which makes sense as they are all in it together and have had very little real world experience. Everything rides on them doing well on the single exam that is given jus once a year. Very Confucian, historically.

Had some free time inthe afternoon, so walked a subwayed to Yonsan park where there is a big tower that overlooks the city. There are these mountains that pop up in the middle of Seoul. Streets and houses are built up to the base and then they leave the mountain as a park. They are really big rock bumps more than real mountains, but the shape is definitely a mountain, just the size is smaller. Not that small, the road to the top zig zags but is 2.2 K. I didn't make it. Got lost trying to find the right road, got herded and berated into the right direction by an elderly Korean woman who seemed to know where I wanted to go. I was wandering around in the publishing district heading uphill and constantly hitting dead ends. I guess it wasn't too hard to figure out what I was up to. Anyway, I follwed a stairway trail called the "Castle exploring" trail. I'll try for a photo here, but it will probably come out above.

It led up a huge number of stairs along the wall of what a I assume to be an ancient castle. Ended up at some mineral springs and another fitness park. I did see some magpies, a new type of dove and a butterfly I had never seen before. Nearly got lost trying to find my way back to a subway stop, but enough careful map work did it. Got back to the hotel in time to shower and change but no dinner.

Off to a concert with traditional Korean instruments and then a modern band that used some traditional instruments. Pretty cool, mist machine, light show, attractive women and a very charismatic front man that played the traditional stuff in a rockin' fashion. Crowd loved it, me too!

DMZ tomorrow, the whole group is psyched!

Had

Sunday in Seoul

Sunday morning, what else but to go to church? As it turns out, even though Korea is a country with strong Buddhist and Confucian heritage, Christianity is its largest single religion. With Seoul's 10 million people it makes some sense that the largest single mega church in the world is here. I've read about mega churches, but all in the US. We went to the 9 AM service along with 5 or 6 thousand others, and there are 5 services... Very professional. Most of an orchestra, big screen TV's, 5 or 6 tv cameras, a 100 member choir...just keep going. We ended up in a prime spot in the balcony, the "foreigners" section, where headphones translated the sermon into 9 languages. All in all a very neat experience. Most of it was standard Christian service, but with two segments of talking in tongues and lots of singing. The size of the place itself was part of the effect.

Well, I thought the first photo above would be here, but its not, so the other photo above is the changing of the guard at the main palace of the Chosin dynasty which ruled Korea from 13 something until the early 20th century. The Japanese destroyed most of it at various times so there's not too much left, but it is still very large and impressive. Plus it is surrounded by two major museums anf a nice park. It was getting pretty hot at this point.

Again, better if the photo was here, but it is above. After the museums and palaces (there was yet another one, better preserved and hotter...) we headed off to a market to allow for shopping. before I go there, back to the palace museum. Lots of cool things there, but they had and entire room for the birthing and education of the future king. They had jars in which were kept the placenta and umbilical chord of the future king. These were placed in large stone containers and displayed in what we would say looked like an elaborate grave yard. Pretty different. They also began the education of the future king by playing music and reading poetry to the fetus while still in the womb. This little bit of information was the coolest of the day for me. Also lots of other good stuff like how to make tofu and soju (Korean alcoholic drink) with 18th century apparatus...

After a classic sit on the floor 25 course Koran traditional meal, we were left at a market that specialized in candy and rice cake manufacure. Here's me next to a future batch of rice peanut brittle or something close. Since lunch was so big Ed, a fellow non shopper, and I split a bag of rice peanut cakes for dinner, after a very tasty ice cream cone.

Went out looking for soju tonight but failed to find it...now 12:30. The hours of this thing are very demanding if you socialize at night.

Saturday morning

Good morning. Still a bit groggy from yesterday, having trouble figuring out how to post some photos. This site is easy but I've done something with the photo program trying to save using the school camera...obviously.

Anyway, yesterday started very early as there is a dawn prayer ceremony at the Buddhist temple and one of the presenters offered to take us and give us pointers on how to behave. Quite a few people got up and went. It was a 3:30 departure, so that indicated a game group. This seminar is loaded with travel, geography and culture junkies. Me included. So we pile into 4 cabs, the cabbie running red lights practically all the way- not a lot of traffic at 3:30... Temple and service were interesting. I have been to numerous Buddhst temples but never to your every day service. Lots of chanting and bowing. The goal is to get in108 bows, head touching the floor, during the service. So there are pillows and cushions and people scatter themselves around he temple and the priest leads the chanting and the motions. There was one section where the chanting was repetitive enough and the bowing was free for all unstructured and I got into it. An older lady rearranged my cushions for me and it helped. I was trying to touch my forhead to the floor Islam style and if you arange your cushions carefully you can make it lots easier and more comfortable, and touching the cushion counts!

The remainder of the day was a blur. Breakfast followed by a subway and explore excursion. just went a few stops and walked around to sample the subway system and try out a new nrighborhood. This one was decidedly more middle class, a lot of sheetrock, windows and building materials being sold. Then two lectures at Yonsei University, the second of which was a struggle for me to stay awake. It was a good lecture but I was fatigued. Lunch was in there at a Thai/Korean place.

Then we bussed over to a complex that was a museum and performing arts center for taditional Korean culture. We saw a performance of hat dances and acrobatics, pretty cool, followed by a concert by singers, traditional instruments and orchestra. Unfortunately, I slept through nearly all of it, which I had anticipated. Staying awake in a dark hall at any time is difficult for me, no chance this time. I caught the beginning and end of each artist. Too bad.

Next we had the night to ourselves. We (Brad, Eric, Rob and I) decided to take a subway to an open air market and shop and have dinner. We lost Eric at one point, never found him either, but he is a savvy traveller who has spent a lot of time in Shanghai. He brings a compass with him on the subway so he can tell where he is when he emerges above ground! Brilliant! He probably lost us on purpose... Dinner was great, we watched as eel, pigeon, octopus, mussels and other stuff was deep fried, then we dug in. Good comraderie and talk. Took three transfers to get back to the hotel, however.

Fun fact- they are way into ranking people out here Confucian style, so older, more educated, married, salary all matter in how you behave towards one another. I was offered a seat on the subway by a gentleman who though I looked like a professor. I actually thiink he was older than me, but he insisted I sit, and he spoke some English so we talked. Then an interpretor who happened to be close by chimed in and we made lots of jokes about ranking each other, It was fun, but did emphasize how the system works.

Friday night

I'm typing like crazy here. It may look as if the posts are being put in here on occasion, but I've entered everthing in the past hour or so. The internet connection wouldn't work in my first room, so I have had to relocate and then mess around with the settings on the laptop to connect to a cable. It was enough to let this little piece of electronics go flying out the 9th floor window. Not really, I've become a much more patient guy in my old age.

Anyway, today was the real first day of the institute. Got a lot of information and met a lot of people. There's 40 of us plus about 5 institute employees, mostly graduate students at Yonsei University. The day was spent on lectures, starter stuff, two pretty fancy meals and a campus tour. Too much information to digest and discuss, but the two sentence version is that Korea has gone through the most rapid economic development in the past 50 years of any country in the world. They have also experienced the most rapid decline in fertility rates. So things are changing here in major ways at a major speed. Also, the written language is way logical, easy to figure out. Very regular and predictable. Going to get up at 3 AM to attend a Buddhist prayer ceremony at 4, so planning on getting to bed soon. City is still hopping,however, lots of traffic and pedestrians still going ay in at 10;30. Good night.

Morning!

Friday- first morning in Korea. Got fouled up with my clocks but managed to awaken in time to get out for a short walk. Roads were wet when I looked out the window but dry when I had dressed and actually reached the sidewalk. Very slow elevator...
Right now I am in what appears to be a fitness park. There are various steel contraptions, wheels, twisters, spring pads, all industrial quality. People are using them , some doing a circuit, mostly old.
Walked a residential district earlier, following my usual system of going uphill and then following the smaller of any possible turns. Quite a few "gated" apartment complexes with colorful playgrounds. Other residences packed in, very Japan like.
I did discover one small temple surounded by high buildings, but most things here are new. Also urban- 10 million people in and around Seoul. 25 million in the greater Seoul vicinity.

First night in Seoul

First night in Seoul. Had a function and am falling asleep at the keyboard trying to connect to the net. Some glitch as usual. 15 hours on the plane today, been up for many hours. Will try again in the morning.

Awaiting the flight

Right now I’m sitting on the floor next to an electrical outlet in terminal 5, the international terminal of Chicago’s O’Hare airport. I’ve often seen people doing this, using the airport to charge up their cell phone or their laptop. Now it’s me too! Up ‘til the last couple of hours the trip has been as usual, but the minute I headed off to terminal 5 I started to get excited. First, it was difficult to find. I had to ask directions twice and the signs were confusing, plus I started to see more foreigners and less Americans. In fact, right on the train platform I was outnumbered and unable to listen in on conversations. Met 3 Koreans on the platform, 4 actually, as they had their 10 month old with them…her first rip to Korea! One spoke English well and taught me “Thank-you” (Kam sam mi da) and Hello (An yung haseyo) along with a versatile word “pi”, which means something like “mayo” in Chinese- little, nothing, ,etc. a diminutive negative.
Fell asleep for a little while in the huge waiting area that was slowly becoming populated. I was still awake when a huge sky blue 747 floated down onto the runway. I have always been impressed with the size of these planes. They are so large they appear to be moving so slowly as it is not possible for them to be flying. Anyway, it was KAL’s distinctive sky blue color so I figured it must be our plane and that it would taxi up to our gate before long. How many KAL 747’s can there be in and out of Chicago? Sure enough, it showed up in about ten minutes and disgorged it’s passengers. We’re about 25 minutes from boarding and the crowd has grown considerably. Pretty cool all in all.

Mr. Fitz's Korea trip

mrfitzskoreatrip.blogspot.com

First entry as a test. Look here next week!