The weekend officially began Friday night with a fiendishly expensive bus ride (a bus we made only narrowly due to Nicola and the only reluctant taxi driver I have ever witnessed in Korea) to South Korea's capitol. The most important thing to relay about the bus ride is that in the midst of it, I was so overcome with a desire to urinate that I actually, honest to god, made use of a small milk carton. Everyone was asleep, thank god, so my dignity remains relatively in tact on that front. Honestly though, I think this is pretty impressive. I always say I'm a man, and this is the proof.
We arrived in Seoul at 5:30 in the morning, which was dreadful. We staggered around in the not yet especially present sunlight and came up with various foolish ideas about what we could do until it was time to go to our campsite. Indecisively, Guy, Matthew, Nicola, Geoff and I set off towards Seoul tower, which is a massive, space alien looking thing that rests high above the city.
The boys kept arguing about which way was up and similar stupidity . It began to steadily drive Nicola and me up the wall and I believe it really helped us come to the decision that what we wanted to do was have a coffee, eat something and then kip in a park. Guy and Matthew were hell bent on climbing the tower, which nobody else seemed to feel any real interest in. So we parted ways.
After separating, Geoff, Nicola and I had espresso and sweets for breakfast in a bakery and then found a park filled with children and temples and the trees that made beautiful sounds as the wind lulled them. It ultimately lulled us pretty good too and all three of us passed out and slept soundly until 11.
Upon waking, we took the subway and a taxi to the site of our campground. It was hot and we were hot and sort of sleepy, so we got beers and chips (the most expensive beer and chips I ever plan to pay for in Korea) and sat in the tent having our way with them.
Nicola headed off to her festival (this was the real reason everyone besides Geoff and I were camping in Seoul...to attend a DJ festival) and Geoff and I headed out of the park/camp ground and into a bigger park that had a pretty wicked fountain and we put our feet in that and spoke in exhausting detail about ourselves as individuals. Then we spoke about ourselves as members of the relationship we are engaged in, something that become a continuous, and eventually a tad tedious, discussion while we were in Seoul.
Then we found a market and became embroiled in decision making about the barbecue we were shopping for. Me and Geoff have ridiculously dissimilar accomplishing things styles. He likes to just impulse his way through things, which makes me nervous as hell. I like to have thought things through before I take definitive action.
Needless to say, I was made nervous and he was all reined in and annoyed by it. It would have been funny if I had been watching it happen to someone else. But it wasn't and I wasn't. Eventually, 60,000 won lighter and heavier in terms of a 24 pack of beer, two liters of water, a liter of coke, a pound of pork, a loaf of bread, sauce and chicken, we began walking back to camp and found that all this crap was heavy.
Along with some other misguided campers, we attempted a short cut that actually didn't work at all and ended up having to turn around and scramble up a steep embankment. Ahead of Geoff and I was a lady, her mother and her young daughter who had found themselves in the same predicament as us. Theirs was made worse by the fact that the daughter was in roller skates and having a massive amount of trouble getting up the embankment. The two older women were trying to help her, but were having trouble. I told Geoff to give me the twenty four pack of beer and to carry the kid. It was absolutely great.
I love it when I suggest or recommend something to someone else and they just go with it and it turns out to be genius. He handed me the beer without a word (it was pretty epic somehow; "you take the beer, I'll save the child") and he just walked up to the women and scoped the little girl up in his arms like he was a knight or FBI agent or something and hiked gallantly up the hill. We were heroes. I will never forget how happy we made all three woman. And honestly, I am the real hero here. The kid was tiny, she weighed probably nothing. But the beer was heavy as hell. And ultimately, beer is much more important than a single child.
Back at camp, Geoff and I started the grill and made some food and waited for everyone to get back. Which of course they eventually did, but immediately and all at once. The evening progressed exactly as you would expect it to, with the men arguing sort of lightly about how long the meat should be grilled, as men usually will, and with lots of beer being consumed. As these things usually happen, people passed out places. So it goes.
The next morning, no one felt terrific. Geoff and I abandoned camp and headed into the more main parts of Seoul, stopping for breakfast in a shopping mall before locating the subway. We took the Subway to some district that had a palace, of which our guidebook informed us, "if you visit only one palace while in Seoul, this is the one to see." And so it goes.
It was fantastic. I cannot describe to you how amazing Korean architecture is, the dragon roofs, the layers of hallways and walkways that surround bigger rooms of greater importance. The floors of the palace were all raised several feet off the ground to allow for the Korean method of heating, which basically involves having the fireplaces below the living space. Unlike Western cultures (actually the Romans might have done it with fireplaces under the floors as well) which relied on a heating source actually located in a room, Koreans heat a room through the floor. Which is brilliant because heat of course rises.
The gardens of the palace were amazing. The trees and bushes and foliage were layered, like a rain forest and there was a juniper tree that had outlasted the entire monarchy of Korea. It was something like 700 years old. There were coy ponds. Everything felt so intentional, so inspired to create and enforce peacefulness. Stair cases had three sets of stairs. The two on the outsides were for everyone's use. But the one in the center was just for the king. I love that. When I am grown and have a family, I am going to have a set of stairs that only I use.
Our tour guide was hopelessly lovely. She had such a sweet, slightly British accident and she spoke amazing English. A lot of her jokes fell flat, as though she lacked confidence in her ability to adequately produce humor in another tongue. But even that won me over. She was dressed in the traditional Korean dress and answered all of our inane foreigner questions very kindly and thoroughly. The tour was everything I wanted it to be. I love these things.
After the tour, Geoff and I ate in a Kimbob place, each of us having a bowl of Sundubu soup, which is basically a spicy sea food soup filled with tofu and egg. I ravaged mine and was done before it had even stopped boiling. Geoff ate his like a delicate princess. Then we went to a nearby outdoor shopping district and perused. I found the hat. The perfect sun hat that I have gone my whole life wanting and never found. The hat that I cannot believe I lived 23 years without. I bought it, obviously, and was pleased. It's floppy and needlessly big in the manner of aristocracy and long yacht rides in the Caribbean and it's mine. I even have a bow to tie on it.
Geoff and I then managed to stumble on the Lantern festival, which is a parade that occurs each year the Sunday before Buddha's birthday. It is spectacular. The entire population of Seoul turns up to march in a massive parade. Many of them are costumed and everybody else carries a lantern, which is quite a sight as night begins to fall. Geoff and I stood in a tightly packed group and gorged on the sight of the parade.
There were beautiful Korean dancing girls, wearing belly dancing outfits and then there were white foreigner girls in the same outfits who just looked like sluts. There were massive lit up lanterns that had to be brought in on trucks. The whole parade ended at this amazing temple that had three incredibly large statues of Buddha, seemingly made entirely out of gold. I was a little shocked by the excess of this initially, especially coming from a culture that frowns so heavily on idolatry. But frankly, it's hard to not be won over by three 20 foot tall statues of Buddha, especially when they are coated in gold.
After we'd seen more parade then we could handle, Geoff and I staggered off to Itaewon, the very western section of Seoul. There we located a Love Motel, so named for exactly what it sounds like (I will hint at it's uses for our more innocent readers....the Love Motel was located in a section of town called Hooker Hill) and where one may sleep very cheaply, $30 a night, or 30,000 won. After depositing our belongings in the somewhat dodgy room, we went out and had a confused burger and fries (Geoff) and amazing chicken fried rice (me) and some beer for dinner. It was great. We got ice cream (I eat way too much ice cream in Korea) and returned to our Love Motel to sleep.
The next day, I woke Geoff up earlier than he was content with because I'd heard of a Western bookstore called What the Book? and I was determined to be there an hour after it opened. We got up and headed out instantly in the wrong direction, turned around, passed the bookstore without realizing it almost immediately (our terrible tour book and god awful map are at least partially to blame) and walked much further down the street than we should have. Needing breakfast, we ducked into a bakery, where, in halting Korean I asked one of the ladies if she had heard of What the Book? She put me to instant and eternal shame by replying in perfect English, "Why of course I know What the Book! All you Yanks go there! Come with me this very moment and I shall point you in it's rough direction." And so it goes.
We headed back in the direction she had pointed, but still somehow failed to locate the shop. I was getting upset. This was a big reason I'd wanted to come to Seoul. My supply of reading material was dwindling and I had fully intended on aimlessly looking through the selection and picking things that tickled my fancy. I had really been excited. We wandered into a Western food store (Geoff was sort of half heartedly searching for Nutella, of all things) and I was peeved to discovered that when Geoff wants something (and he usually does), the universe instantly sees fit to provide him with it. But when I want something, the universe tucks it away and has us walk past it repeatedly. Eventually we did find the store and we also found that it was closed due to the holiday. It might be open at noon, its posted holiday hours promised sort of weakly. Noon was a mere 2 hours away. I wasn't pleased. But I also wasn't leaving Seoul until I'd been to the bookstore.
Having made that clear to Geoff, we set out to explore Itaewon a bit and to kill two hours. I had several coffees. Geoff just stayed relatively quiet (something he does pretty well) and let me march around. We were both getting a little tired of each other and it was funny but also, obviously, irritating. We kept having those sort of pronounced mock arguments that couples have to be funny but that actually hint at a hidden portion of real resentment, the type that occurs when two people have had only each other to speak and look at for over 72 hours.
Eventually the bookstore did in fact open and I was able to make love to all the titles with my eyes and make my little selections. Usually I like to buy something I've read but can't remember (Slaughter House Five), something by an author I like (Werewolves in Their Youth), something I've heard good things about (Tin Drum) and something I don't know a thing about but feel I should (A Room with a View). Weighed down with books, we left and Geoff got a burrito, something he had been thinking about for two months. Seoul is apparently the only place to get one.
We took a train to Busan, which was lovely. There is something about the way a train rolls past things that is vastly preferable to me than the manner in which a bus doggedly bumps along. We argued quietly for a lot of the trip, about how Geoff is somewhat disrespectful of the culture he is living in and how he speaks too loudly and says deeply inappropriate things in public, as though English is some amazingly secret language that no one in the world speaks.
After we finished discussing him, it felt necessary to discuss what a scary, controlling, neurotic, harsh bitch I am--just to keep things even. We did that for a while and then made up very spectacularly, the sort of making up where both parties comfort the other and assure them that nothing was meant by any of it and that in fact much of what was said was not meant in the manner it was taken in in the first place. I should have majored in making up.
We had to take the Busan subway and a bus back to Ulsan. It was somehow frustrating for me to use the Busan underground, especially as we had so recently mastered the use of the much more substantial Seoul underground. The Busan subway seemed beneath our subway navigational skill somehow.
I truly feel that nothing makes a traveler feel more in tune with a city than when they understand how to use that city's underground system. After an hour or two, we got back to Ulsan and Geoff's apartment, safe and sound. We made kimbob and watched The Office and all was well. So it goes.
