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!