I love the way this fountain has completely frozen over - now i understand why they turn most fountains off here in winter! But still, it looks great :-)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Back from Holidays - Part 1
Well I have just had a full on two weeks of holidays, and am now ready to have another week of relaxation to recover. Unfortunately I've found that when I'm not doing much I have lots of time to blog but nothing to blog about; when I'm doing lots I have lots to blog about but no time to blog! So this might take a couple of blogs to cover all the incredible touristy stuff I've been doing.
First of all I should mention that I did most of this stuff with my friend Mick who came to visit from Australia. I was a little worried at first how he'd take to Korea, it being rather different and all, and him standing out (a lot!) but as it turned out he fell in love with the place from the first day (which is when I took him to a Noribahn to sing karaoke) and didn't want to go home.
Anyway, the first thing we did was get into a couple of palaces, mainly Gyeonbok Palace and Changdeok Palace, two of the biggest which are right in the middle of the city. Gyeonbok Palace was the grander of the two, but Changdeok was really quaint and cosy. The nice thing about both of them was that despite being in the middle of the city it was incredibly quiet there, so it was really nice and peaceful just walking around - although freezing cold I might add. For a $3 entrance fee it was worth it just for the nice walk, never mind the cool palace stuff. At the Gyeonbok Palace there was also the Korean Folk Museum, which had a lot of interesting stuff on Korean ancient history. I mostly loved the ring of statues out the front which depicted the 12 symbols for the Chinese - I mean Korean! - lunar year, i.e. tiger, rat, snake etc. I made sure to get photos of each one, so if anyone wants a photo of their sign let me know :-)
On the second (third?) day we went to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which is the strip of land that runs between North and South Korea. This was a pretty surreal experience, particularly as they have turned the place into a tourist attraction. In particular there's an area where you look through telescopes over North Korea, and it's like, "I see one!" or, "There's someone riding a bike!" like we were at a safari or something. That aside, it was eerie to be peering into such a secret place. We were also able to go down a tunnel that had been dug by the North Koreans in 1978 for a secret invasion of the South, which had been discovered in time after a tip off by a defector from North Korea. The funny thing was that after hearing that South Korea was making money from tourists visiting the tunnel, North Korea has demanded money for building the thing!
I think I'm up to the fourth day now, which is when we visited the Korean Folk Visit. If anyone's ever been to Sovereign Hill, it's kinda something like that where houses and shops and stuff have been gathered from all over Korea and preserved in their original condition. It was very picturesque, plus they have shows of traditional Korean drummers and other acts, and you get to do stuff like make traditional kites which make for a cool souvenir that I'm not sure how to get in my pack.
Finally (for this post), I dragged Mick to a Jimjillbahn, a Korean spa. He was rather horrified to find that I'd been completely serious about this, as he had assumed that I was just teasing him up until this point. I should mention that he is roughly 200 cm, so a fair bit bigger than the average Korean, and he'd just gone through a week of people giggling and pointing at him, so the prospect of 'nuding it up' with these guys made him a little, um... I think terrified is the word for it:-) I persevered however, (warning for those who come to visit me; you will have no say at all over what you get to do!) and I'm happy to say that he really enjoyed it. That is, he will deny it completely, but I know he did ;-)
Obviously I can't show photos of the jimjillbahn, but I can show you this cool fountain that is right out front; just goes to show how cold you are before you get in there! Oh and it looks as if I've now posted so many photos below that they go on for a few pages... finishing up for now!
First of all I should mention that I did most of this stuff with my friend Mick who came to visit from Australia. I was a little worried at first how he'd take to Korea, it being rather different and all, and him standing out (a lot!) but as it turned out he fell in love with the place from the first day (which is when I took him to a Noribahn to sing karaoke) and didn't want to go home.
Anyway, the first thing we did was get into a couple of palaces, mainly Gyeonbok Palace and Changdeok Palace, two of the biggest which are right in the middle of the city. Gyeonbok Palace was the grander of the two, but Changdeok was really quaint and cosy. The nice thing about both of them was that despite being in the middle of the city it was incredibly quiet there, so it was really nice and peaceful just walking around - although freezing cold I might add. For a $3 entrance fee it was worth it just for the nice walk, never mind the cool palace stuff. At the Gyeonbok Palace there was also the Korean Folk Museum, which had a lot of interesting stuff on Korean ancient history. I mostly loved the ring of statues out the front which depicted the 12 symbols for the Chinese - I mean Korean! - lunar year, i.e. tiger, rat, snake etc. I made sure to get photos of each one, so if anyone wants a photo of their sign let me know :-)
On the second (third?) day we went to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which is the strip of land that runs between North and South Korea. This was a pretty surreal experience, particularly as they have turned the place into a tourist attraction. In particular there's an area where you look through telescopes over North Korea, and it's like, "I see one!" or, "There's someone riding a bike!" like we were at a safari or something. That aside, it was eerie to be peering into such a secret place. We were also able to go down a tunnel that had been dug by the North Koreans in 1978 for a secret invasion of the South, which had been discovered in time after a tip off by a defector from North Korea. The funny thing was that after hearing that South Korea was making money from tourists visiting the tunnel, North Korea has demanded money for building the thing!
I think I'm up to the fourth day now, which is when we visited the Korean Folk Visit. If anyone's ever been to Sovereign Hill, it's kinda something like that where houses and shops and stuff have been gathered from all over Korea and preserved in their original condition. It was very picturesque, plus they have shows of traditional Korean drummers and other acts, and you get to do stuff like make traditional kites which make for a cool souvenir that I'm not sure how to get in my pack.
Finally (for this post), I dragged Mick to a Jimjillbahn, a Korean spa. He was rather horrified to find that I'd been completely serious about this, as he had assumed that I was just teasing him up until this point. I should mention that he is roughly 200 cm, so a fair bit bigger than the average Korean, and he'd just gone through a week of people giggling and pointing at him, so the prospect of 'nuding it up' with these guys made him a little, um... I think terrified is the word for it:-) I persevered however, (warning for those who come to visit me; you will have no say at all over what you get to do!) and I'm happy to say that he really enjoyed it. That is, he will deny it completely, but I know he did ;-)
Obviously I can't show photos of the jimjillbahn, but I can show you this cool fountain that is right out front; just goes to show how cold you are before you get in there! Oh and it looks as if I've now posted so many photos below that they go on for a few pages... finishing up for now!
DMZ
Looking out at North Korea. I had to stand way back behind a yellow line to take this photo - one guy crossed it and was suddenly surrounded by about 3 soldiers all waving furiously at him.
DMZ
A couple of soldiers walking by a checkpoint at the DMZ; our tour guide told us afterwards that they must be new because they're not meant to wave at tourists.
DMZ
This was really weird; South Korea has built an immaculate train station here with a line that goes from Seoul to the very edge of the DMZ and then stops. The hope is that one day when the two halves are reunited there will be a train line going direct from Seoul to Pyeongyang. In the meanwhile this station is being kept waiting, just like a ghost town.
Lunar Statues
This one was the ox, as hopefully you can tell! I loved these guys, they were incredibly intricate and somehow even the rat and the pig manage to look noble.
Gyeonbok Palace
This was the little pavilion where the prince would come to spend time with the ladies of his harem; you could only reach it via a single footbridge, so I guess it was pretty nice and private.
Gyeonbok Palace
The throne room at Gyeonbok Palace. Everything was mostly made out of wood, with incredibly intricate paintings. This isn't actually the original palace - the last one was burned down by the Japanese and rebuilt after they left.
Changdeok Palace
This was the throne room at Changdeok Palace - interestingly they have the exact same picture behind the throne at both Changdeok and Gyeonbok Palace.
Changdeok Palace
All the roofs of the palace buildings had little statues on the top, the number varying according to how important the building was. For some reason that I can't remember there was always an odd number of them. They're all incredibly detailed, just like this guy.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Snow stuff and Happy New Year!
So the snow has truly settled in now. Of course it waited until 2 days after Christmas before it came, so I didn't get my white Christmas, but the winter wonderland that is outside my window every morning now kinda makes up for it. I don't think I will ever get sick of it, no matter how many times I have almost fallen on my butt now. Everything is just that much prettier when it's covered in snow.
Nearly forgot; Happy New Year everybody! I hope you all had as good a time as I did. I have to say I had a ridiculously good time, even if I did have the craziest 10 minutes of my life squeezed into a bar that was literally packed to the rafters for the actual countdown. Some genius had decided to give away free drinks in the last 15 minutes before 12, which meant the sudden appearance of every foreigner in Seoul in this one pub. And I thought the trains here were bad! I managed to get out the second the countdown was over, using only the minimum of violence necessary. I had wanted to feel what the vibe in Seoul was like for New Years though, and I guess I did! It was strangely a lot of fun. All in all it was one of the best New Years I've had in a long time :-)
Nearly forgot; Happy New Year everybody! I hope you all had as good a time as I did. I have to say I had a ridiculously good time, even if I did have the craziest 10 minutes of my life squeezed into a bar that was literally packed to the rafters for the actual countdown. Some genius had decided to give away free drinks in the last 15 minutes before 12, which meant the sudden appearance of every foreigner in Seoul in this one pub. And I thought the trains here were bad! I managed to get out the second the countdown was over, using only the minimum of violence necessary. I had wanted to feel what the vibe in Seoul was like for New Years though, and I guess I did! It was strangely a lot of fun. All in all it was one of the best New Years I've had in a long time :-)
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