ソウル

Last Friday Keiko and I headed to Seoul for a little 4 day, fall vacation. My main motivation in planning this trip at this particular time was to give myself the chance to see the World Taekwondo Hanmadang, being held in Suwon, just south of Seoul from the 2nd until the 4th. At the same time it would give me the chance to experience Korea, a place I've wanted to go for some time, but never had a great opportunity to make the trip a reality. For Keiko, it was also her first trip to Korea, and it also gave her the chance to meet with some old friends she met in Toronto at English school, as well as do a bit of shopping in the extremely cheap (compared to Japan/Canada) stores of Seoul.

For me this was the first time I had ever been to a country where I had basically no knowledge of the native language. I thought it might make me feel a little uncomfortable like I had this little bubble around me, but I think it just opened up all my other senses to take it all in since I was paying no attention at all to the language and trying to translate things in my head. I'm thankful though that most transportation signs have English on them as well so getting around wasn't a problem at all.

Friday, we arrived at the airport late in the afternoon, and by the time we had taken the bus to Seoul and reached the hotel it was getting dark. We headed to a nearby restaurant located in a back alley for a huge pot or spicy chicken stew. The meal comes in one of those old style hand laundry tin tubs filled with vegetables, spicy soup, and a whole chicken. Fantastic meal for two. After that we headed did a bit of walking around and headed back to the hotel.









The next morning we went to an area called Itaewon which apparently is a foreigner paradise, as probably 75% of the people I saw while there weren't Korean. It also happens to be home to a number of leather clothing and jacket stores. Korean leathers are a hot item in Japan and Keiko was in the market for something distinctive, but unfortunately, unlike everything else in Korea, the leathers weren't cheap and she was left empty handed.









After a bit of walking around and some lunch we went to Gyeongbukgong, the old palace of the Korean Emperor. The buildings were destroyed by the Japanese during their occupation of Korea, but the Korean government has made it a priority to restore the palace to its former glory, and I must say what they've done so far is fantastic. The palace grounds are massive, and the first thing I noticed after experiencing a number of Japanese castles, which are surrounded by greenery and gardens, is that the grounds of Gyeongbukgong are predominantly stone-covered. The architecture is also quite different and seems to have a greater Chinese influence than buildings of similar age in Japan. Following the tour of the palace was dinner where we had an incredibly spicy stew. I also started to feel the symptoms of my uncoming cold around this time.











The next day we headed to Suwon to take in the last day of the Hanmadang. I had seen some on tv the previous morning and was pumped to see it first hand. The Hanmadang is a little different than a normal tournament in that there is no sparring. The focus is on patterns, breaking, and team demonstrations which combine, patterns, breaking, and pre-planned demonstration fights with flashy techniques. It took a fair bit of time to reach Suwon, and being the last day the tournament finished in the afternoon, but I still managed to see quite a bit and a number of impressive things. I was a bit surprised at the crowd (or lack thereof) which was mostly made up of other competitors. The tournament was free to watch, located in a largely populated area, and they had free drinks and snacks so the lack of a crowd was pretty surprising to me. I don't think it was because it was the final day either, because when I saw the tv broadcast from the day before the crowd was looking just as thin.

Most of the competitors were (surprise!) Korean, coming from various universities around the country. By far the most impressive was the team from Yong-In University. After doing a bit of research afterwards I found out Yong-In University is one of the premier martial arts schools in the world. One of their faculties is the College of Martial Arts where it's possible to take a 4-year university degree in Taekwondo! Students who complete the program graduate with a sport instructor's license, the 2nd level playing instructors license (not really sure what this is), and a 4th degree black belt. Anyway one of their team members managed to break 49 boards that were only being held by one hand in 30 seconds with consecutive reverse turning kicks to take a breaking title. Another girl from the team won the jumping front-snap kick breaking with a break at 225cm. I didn't get to see their team performance, but I did see team performances from India, Mexico, and Taiwan. The Taiwanese were by far the best of those three and Keiko commented on how they seemed to be much better showmen, and far more entertaining than the other two teams.

Another reason for coming to the tournament was to see level of competition of other countries and whether or not the Toronto level (particularly the black belt team, Team One, that my brother and I are/were are part of) is up to par. I've gotta say hands down that their is easily enough talent on Team One to compete at next year's Hanmadang if they wanted to. While I don't think we could win or place top three, the team would most likely be better than the Mexican and Indian teams I saw, and very close to the Taiwanese team's level I think.







Since the tournament ended rather early we did a bit of sightseeing in Suwon, home to Hwaseong Fortress, Korea's only walled city. I came to Suwon to see Taekwondo, but Hwaseong fortress for me was easily the highlight of the entire trip, attraction-wise. A 5.74km wall circles what use to be the entirety of Suwon city before urban sprawl took over. Four main gates at the cardinal directions along with other guard towers, observation posts and the like make up the wall. Inside, a castle and archery range among other historical things, as well a large number of modern buildings make up the fortress city. I can not adequately describe what a site Hwaseong fortress is. I can only say that is the most magnificent man-made structures I have seen in either Korea, Japan, or any other place I've ever been, and even some of those I haven't. If you are ever in Seoul and have a day you can take to go to Suwon and experience Hwaseong Fortress DO IT! You will not be disappointed.











That night we headed back to Seoul and met up with three of Keiko's friends from English school in Toronto. One of them couldn't stay around long, but the other two took us on a whirlwind night tour of Seoul where we visited Seoul Tower, the Han River, a 24 hour grocery store popular with Korean music and TV stars where we picked up kimchi and other food stuffs to bring home, and Dongdaemun, the famous shopping district home to a number of department stores which never close so Koreans and tourists alike can get their shopping done any time of day, any day of the year. It's really kinda crazy when you think about it.







Monday we met up with Keiko's friends again and since our flight was later in the afternoon we had time to have a group lunch and do a last little bit of touring around the popular shopping district for young people. While Keiko and her female friend were in some girly store, her other male friend and I waited outside. While we were standing outside the store we were approached by some workers from a Christian TV station who asked if we wouldn't mind giving our opinions on gays and lesbians. It was pretty uneventful, but all the people walking by were giving us looks, probably wondering why the cameras were focused on the one white guy in the area.







After lunch we headed to the airport and the two friends who took us out on the night tour escorted us all the way to the airport. Riding the train to the airport were interviewed yet again, this time by what Keiko's friend told us is a fairly large and popular national business news network, about what we thought of the airport train we were riding on. I'll tell you the same thing I told them. It's fantastic. Spotlessly clean, fast (but not Shinkansen fast), and is mindblowingly cheap. The total fare for the express train is 3100 won ($3 CAD, 360 yen) for a trip that distance wise would cost you at least 2000 yen in Japan (more if you took the Shinkansen) and probably $10 CAD on the not nearly as nice GO Train. Keiko's friend said the clip will most likely be up on the internet soon, so she'll try and find it and send us the link. So if I get it I will put it up here as well. Maybe if all else fails there a job for me on Korean TV with all this recent exposure???





Finally, I'd just like to share a few random observations I made during the trip.

- Seoul has to be one of the most hilly cities I've ever visited, and I was surprised considering how big the city is. I thought it would be more flat like Tokyo, but there are hills everywhere and they are aren't just tiny little things either. More often then not they are fairly steep and long. There are a number of residential areas in these steep hills throughout the city and they are fantastic to walk through to see the beautiful terraced houses and experience the "real Seoul."

- No matter where we were in the city there were always an incredibly diverse group of people: young, old, couples, all guy/girl groups, families etc. In Japan many place you go to tend to be frequented by a certain group of people. You don't see girl only groups in ramen shops, or young people in snack bars, but it seemed like wherever we were or went there was always a healthy mix of different groups of people and I found it very refreshing.

- Before I came to Japan and went to Tokyo first hand, the image I had in my mind of what Tokyo was (outside of famous areas who's appearance I already knew) is basically what Seoul is.

- Seoul, unlike any other big city I've ever been in is CHEAP! The subway costs 1000 won ($1 CAD, 120 yen), you can get a great meal basically anywhere for 5-6000 won, and even a huge baller-style meal is at most about 10000 won a person. If you want to drink as well a bottle of soju (350ml) is 3000 won and beer (750ml bottle) is 4000. The hotel (which was actually like a little apartment) cost about 50000 won a night and was right in the heart of the city with easy access to everything.

- Driving in Seoul seems a lot easier than in Japan. Despite the volume of cars the roads are a lot wider. There are actually a number of roads that run throughout the city that are 10 lanes or wider. There is a ton of horn honking though and taxi drivers at night seem to go colourblind and run red lights like crazy.

- Unlike Tokyo, which I get sick of after 2 or 3 days, spending 4 days in Seoul I only wished my trip had been longer. It seems like Seoul is a very easy city to live in. Of course, I really have no idea about daily life there, as a tourist, but I was thinking about all the English teachers here who lost there jobs when Nova closed down and I got the impression that if you were just coming to either Japan or Korea just for the hell of it as an English teacher with no knowledge of the country's native language or customs, Seoul would be much easier to get used to than Tokyo or Osaka and Japanese life.

- We travelled out of Nagoya airport rather than Osaka because it's much closer to Shiga and Keiko had never been there and was probably the best decision we madeaside from actually going to Korea. The place is deserted compared to Osaka airport. Leaving we made it through check-in, security, and to the gate in probably 30 minutes. Coming back we cleared immigration, got our bags and made it through the final security to the train in a similar time. From now on, all my trips will be from Nagoya unless it's impossible to do so. Easily the most hassle-free airport experience of my life since I have been old enough to travel on my own.

My Kingdom

Today was a gorgeous day. Abnormally warm, with plenty of sunshine. A couple of farmers were busy plowing up the field behind my house since about 8 o'clock so even though I would have loved to, the sound of their tractors prevented me from sleeping in. It was probably for the best though. After taking care of some laundry and hanging it out to dry, I set off on a bike ride. Today's ride was different from most. Usually, I head west towards the city, because I have some shopping to do or some place I'd like to go. Today with nothing to do I went east, camera in hand, to where my school and the other elementary schools are for a leisurely afternoon ride.

Some kids were practicing baseball at one elementary school. Some seniors were getting ready to play a game of ground golf at my school. A couple of 3rd year girls were hanging out in the shade near the school ground, hanging out and eating bento lunches they bought at the local classic Japanese-style restaurant. After chatting with them a little I kept riding, heading for a nearby river though the main village where most of my students live. When I reached the river I found my way down to the riverside and ate the lunch I had purchased just before at the convenience store.

After lunch, I headed towards the local temple, Eigenji. It's famous around Kansai (maybe Japan?) for it's fall foliage, and even though most of the trees are still quite green, there was a fairly decent crowd around there. I didn't bother going to look though, as I plan on heading back in a few weeks when it's peak season. I turned around and headed back at a relaxed pace taking it all in.











I made this image in paint by pieceing together 5 or 6 other pictures I had taken from the same spot. There's some discrepancies in the alignment, but I wasn't planning on making a panorama, and have no idea how you actually do it right, so all things considered I think it's decent. It's about a 180 degree view of the area where all of my schools are which I have titled "My Kingdom"

太郎防宮アンド瓦屋寺

This is ridiculously old, but one weekend maybe a month ago I decided to take in some of the local shrines and temples. I'm not particularly religious, but hands down one of my favorite things about being in Japan is being able to go and visit temples and shrines wherever you are. I recently read somewhere that even though there are convenience stores EVERYWHERE in Japan, there are still more Buddhist temples in the country. I found this to be quite reassuring to me, but I'm not exactly sure in what way it was.

On this weekend I decided to head west to Tarobogu, a shrine built on the side of a local mountain. The shrine guardian is a tengu called Tarobo, and the shrine god is the god of victory, so when I was there I saw many wooden prayer cards with things like "Let me pass the high school/university entrance exams" or "Help me find true love" written on them. I always enjoy reading a few of the prayers written down by previous visitors. There's usually a couple of really unique ones, but this time most were pretty casual and nothing really stood out. Another attraction of the shrine is what is known as the "wedded rock," Two large rocks with a split between them just wide enough for a person to pass through. It's said that if you have evil in your heart the rocks will come together and crush you as you pass through which leads to a lot of children running through trying to avoid being crushed. I managed to make it through walking at a leisurely pace unscathed.

After visiting Tarobogu, it was still rather early so I headed around to the other side of the mountain where there was a Buddhist temple called Kawarayaji. When I got there I was the only one there and felt a little like an interloper who had discovered a hidden hideaway meant only for a select group of people. The temple and it's surroundings are all covered by a canopy of tall trees and moss covered the majority of the stone walkways around the temple. Around the rear there is an old stone staircase which stretches for what seems about 2 kilometers and takes you down through a forest down the mountain and back into the town. I couldn't make it all the way because I had left my bike on the opposite side of the mountain near the bottom of Tarobogu and had to turn around before I had gone too far, but I have to say that Kawarayaji and its environs have to be some of the most etherally serene I've experienced. It reminded me a lot of my time in Shikoku in the mountains doing the temple tour.

文化祭

Last weekend was the school culture festival. It's called a culture festival but it's really more like a school play/concert type deal. Each class puts on a short play and does a performance of two songs. The teachers actually get to judge the song part of the day and the winning class and runner-up get a trophy and/or certificate for their excellent display.

This isn't to say that there is no really unique cultural things, but they take up a rather small amount of the full day's events. There was a taiko drum performance which started off the festival and shortly after that there was the unveiling of this year's "hari-e" picture. Hari-e is basically a mosaic picture. A large number of students spent the better part of a week gluing tiny 1cm by 1cm pieces of coloured paper onto larger master key sheets. These sheets were then assembled into the final picture which was a shot of the school from the rear garden, and it was hung from the back of the gym. Watching the kids work on the smaller sections it was hard to believe that it would form the picture it did so I was actually rather impressed when I saw the final product.

In the middle of the day, in between the plays and the class song battle there were a few free performances where people and groups put on music, dance, or entertainment performances without any kind of restriction. I ended up playing bass in a band performance with a group of 3rd year girls.

On day I was just messing around with the school's bass guitar when these girls came into the room ready to practice for the festival. When they came in I figured I'd better leave them to their practice, but seeing me playing around they asked "Oh Tyler! Can you play bass?!" I said "Not really at all, I was just messing around." and figured that would be that, but one of them followed up asking "Well, do you want to join us for the Culture Festival?" I said again that I'm not really good at all and probably couldn't learn the song completely with the limited practice time left. "No problem, just play what you can" she replied and I was trapped. I actually surprised myself and learned about 85% of the song with about the 3 hours of practice I had over the remaining few days. I tried to take a video of the performance with my camera that I had set up side-stage, but halfway through the batteries died and nothing got saved at all. Luckily, the school was taping everything with one of their cameras so I should be able to get a copy of the video shortly and then I can put it up on here. So until then, you're stuck with my few, and very poor pictures I tried to take in the dark gym.

Adventures with Mano-san

Mano-san is the head of the office at school. Over the past month we've done a few things together and become decent friends. He's really into music having played in bands for over 30 years, and he likes going around to different places, trying out new restaurants and such. A couple weeks ago we had a three day weekend and Mano-san suggested we go out to Osaka for udon. The thing is Mano-san is also a Buddhist priest and had a Buddhist event he had to attend to that day until late at night, so he said it would be a bit later at night. I said it was fine, and would wait for his mail.

Around 11:00, I got a mail on my phone saying. If you're still ready I'll be there at 11:30 to get you. After picking me up, we picked up a couple of Mano's friends. One of them, said he must be crazy for agreeing to go to Osaka at midnight for a 600 yen bowl of udon. Even on the highway it took us a good couple of hours to get to Osaka. We got there around 1:30 and walked around trying to find the restaurant in question.

I wish I could say something like "So - we go. And - it's closed. So there's me, and Mano-san, and his friends, breaking into that little udon shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they've got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shopkeeper and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really, but sure enough we got the udon, and left feeling most satisfied." (+20 points if you get the reference) But I can't.

Normally, it's supposed to be open until 6:00, but it turns out they close at 11 on Sundays. Before, we'd even left Shiga the restaurant was closed. It was so deliciously ironic that we all laughed about it on the walk back to the car.

The urge for udon was still ever present though, and we drove around trying to find a restaurant somewhere with late hours. No luck however, but we managed to score some udon at a service area along the highway. I gotta say the Japanese service areas really trump anything in the States or Canada. The service areas are fully stocked. Every one has a food court, along with at least one convenience store like outfit, and a number of vending machines for warm and cold beverages, and snack foods. They are staffed 24 hours a day as well, so anytime you're travelling you can get anything your heart desires. Excellent service. The only downside is, all highways here are toll roads, and they're rather expensive as well. It costs you roughly about 1500 yen per 100 km.

Anyway, I made it home around 5 am just as the sun was coming up, went to bed, and woke up at 10 when the guy came to set up my internet.