Bye (in Korean). Hello (in Thai)

Another bus ride, another blog post. When I posted last, ten days further removed from a Trump presidency (for those of you reading this in the distant future, the "Glorious Leader") I was still in Korea, more specifically, in Busan. From the date of that post I spent a further two days in that area of the country. As planned, one day was spent in Gyeongju, a former capital which has some pretty cool temples (for a change) and other historical buildings (see some pictures, below). On my final day in Busan I visited Yonggungsa temple, which is distinguished from other temples in Korea by its location on the beach, as opposed to atop a mountain. I really liked Busan and would have liked to spend more time there, but alas, I had already booked my train back to Seoul due to it being the busy Chuseok season (kind of like the Korean Thanksgiving).

Back in Seoul, I didn't do too much in the way of touristy activities, save for a mandatory trip to Gangnam, which was disappointingly dull (I'm not really sure what I was expecting), and I mainly just hung out with people from the hostel and stared wistfully out of windows and other openings.

I heralded a new chapter of my trip on Sunday, when I flew to Bangkok to begin a more free-form period of travel, of indeterminate length, in southeast Asia. I had booked a few nights in Bangkok during which time I intended to see the city and determine where to go next. I'm not committed to anything, but as a preliminary and high-level blueprint, I'm minded to do an anti-clockwise loop that takes in southern Thailand, followed by Cambodia, travelling up the coast of Vietnam, crossing into Laos and ending in northern Thailand. To that end I'm en route to Koh Tao, an island which is like a mecca for diving, in that Muslim people like to dive there. No, that would be silly; it's a non-denominational mecca for diving. The plan is to do a PADI qualification course and then be able to dive affordably throughout the trip.

Bangkok itself is pretty hectic. I stayed in the Khao San area, which is backpacker central, and which was quite reminiscent of Pahar Ganj in Delhi. It's still the rainy season here, and with the exception of today, there were intermittent thunder storms accompanied by torrential rain. On my first day, I went around with Israelis and dusted off my Hebrew, but after that I fraternised with people from my hostel, none of whom were Israeli - the shoresh count on the streets was high, but I'm not sure where all the Israelis were staying. In any case, the vibe here seems to be exceptionally friendly and social, fostered by the mainly solo travelers who aren't on tight schedules.

I did a bit of sightseeing in Bangkok, taking in the Grand Palace (beautiful, very pricey) and Wat Pho temple (beautiful, less pricey). I also rode the boat bus on the river that whisks one along an atmospheric route through the city, avoiding the congested streets. Mostly I just took it easy and giddily enjoyed my dramatically increased purchasing power and indulging in much-missed fresh fruit (enabled by the former).

I'm looking forward to getting away from large cities for a bit and I'm just hoping that the weather on the island is decent.

I hope to update next week. Meanwhile, I will part with some words of wisdom.

'If at first you don't succeed, Thai, Thai again'

'A high Thai raises all ships'

'Do or do not. There is no Thai'

'A stitch in Thai-m saves nine'

'It is better Thai have loved and lost than never Thai have loved at all'

'All I know is that I know nothing. Thai.'

Love David

Sunset over the ancient astronomical observatory in Gyeongju 

Wolji Pond at Gyeongju 

Yonggungsa Temple

Selfie on the bus boat in Bangkok 

The gigantic reclining Buddha at Wat Pho 

Sayonara/Annyong

At the time of my previous post I was about to make a brief trip to Nikko, before flying from Tokyo to Seoul. I'm writing this from Busan, South Korea's second largest metropolis, having traveled here from Seoul yesterday (Monday). Now that I've spent a full week in South Korea, I have an epistolary urge that can only be satisfied by a new post to cover my impressions and what I've been up to.

Before I delve into my peninsular adventures, I'll briefly sum up my day and a half in Nikko by saying that it's a nice place in the mountains, with temples and shrines that I'm happy I visited but didn't rate as highly as some guidebooks and travel websites do. One thing that's cool there is the Toshogu shrine, which is very different in style from most Shinto shrines, and contains the wood carving of the legendary three monkeys ('see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'). In the course of a perfunctory Google on the matter, I discovered that the names of the monkeys in Japanese are actually a play on words, as the word for monkey - 'saru' sounds like the word for 'do not'.

I arrived in South Korea with a backpack full of dirty laundry and expectations, but few concrete plans. While I didn't formally plan out my time in Japan, there was definitely a rough checklist of things I wished to see or do; for South Korea, I just wanted to seize an opportune time to visit a place I'd be unlikely to reach otherwise, and I was quite happy to just land and discover the sights in real-time.

I had heard conflicting verdicts, both from westerners and Japanese people, regarding how similar South Korea is to Japan, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. For my money, the two countries are quite different in most respects - language, culture (Korea is pushier and less overly polite - I feel right at home), aesthetics of a basic street scene (more litter and fewer, though still many, vending machines, in Korea). The two countries are certainly more similar to one another than either of them are to a European country, but that's just like saying that Italy and the Netherlands are more similar to each other than either is to Japan - the statement omits more than it reveals. Having said that, coming from Japan to Seoul meant that there was far less culture shock than there would have been had Seoul been my first destination.

Seoul felt very young and it had a great energy. I went to visit one of the historic Joseon dynasty palaces and adjacent 'secret garden', and biked along the Han river, which is dotted with parks (in general they seem more into fitness and outdoorsy things here; it may have something to do with the fact that there is military conscription). I also swung by  the Korean War Memorial, which is not (only) a monument, but a museum of what the South Koreans could, but to the best of my knowledge don't, call 'the war of Northern aggression'. I rounded it all out by walking some choice segments of the old city wall. One segment passed through a cool hilly neighbourhood with murals painted on the staircases that led between the alleys. Hiking another one of the segments requires registration with the authorities, and the route has many military checkpoints, as the bottom of the hill is where the president's official residence is located and those dastardly North Koreans attempted to assassinate the South Korean president in this area, back in 1968.

On the subject of North Korea; I took a daytrip to the demilitarised zone (DMZ). We visited one of the infiltration tunnels dug by the North Koreans, a lookout where you could see well past the border, and a train station from which trains used to run to North Korea, specifically,  to a South Korean industrial area there for a brief few years during which the countries had some limited economic cooperation. The highlight of the tour was a visit to the Joint Security Area (JSA), manned by US and South Korean soldiers on the one hand, and North Korean soldiers (though I didn't see any up close) on the other, and where you can enter the huts that straddle the border, in which periodic diplomatic talks are held. I judiciously refrained from performing my famous 'North Koreans be all like... and South Koreans be all like...' bit, and escalating an already tense situation. Sadly in order to conform to the dress code for the JSA, I had to wear long trousers and closed shoes. This brought a close to a period of over a month without wearing socks, which, while not an achievement on par with decoding the human genome, was fulfilling nonetheless.

As I mentioned above, I've been in Busan since yesterday. It was raining when I arrived, so I went for what's known here as a 'schvitz' at a jimjilbang, Korea's answer to the onsen. It was very relaxing and made me realise that perhaps the answer to all my questions is simply a decadent life of hedonistic pleasures; I know it'll be tough, but I'm prepared to rise to the challenge. Ironically, after spending five weeks in earthquake prone Japan without feeling so much as a tremor, there was a wall-shaking 5.8 magnitude earthquake here yesterday, the strongest in the country's recorded history apparently. Oh well, I guess this is what we all signed up for when we went ahead and legalised gay marriage.

I spent most of today walking along a beautiful and scenic coastal walk and writing for this blog, and I plan to visit the former capital of Korea tomorrow -  apparently it's a smorgasbord of temples and palaces.

On Thursday I'll head back to Seoul until Sunday when I'm due to fly to Bangkok from which point I have literally planned nothing - I'll be sure to update.

May the South Korea of each man's heart always beat the North Korea, in the struggle for his soul.

Love David

Carving of the three monkeys 

Buddhas by the river in Nikko 

Farewell view of Japan from the plane 

At the secret garden 

Seoul city walls 

At the JSA 

The Busan coast 

The Heartland

It's been eleven days since I last posted, so as I enter my final two days in the country I feel an update is in order. The fact that I am currently waiting for a delayed train to depart, a rare event in Japan, affords me the time to provide one, without the availability of distracting activities allowing further procrastination.

The previous post covered a period up to, and including, the baseball game in Fukuoka. Since then, I've visited Nagoya, Tsumago and Magome (as a daytrip) Takayama, Shirakawago (also a side trip) and Kanazawa. I will mention a few highlights and then take the opportunity to share a few general observations from the past month, about travelling, particularly solo, and indeed about life in general.

I really liked Nagoya which, like Fukuoka, was a modern city with wide streets and park areas, large and dynamic, but not quite of the scale and frenetic activity level of a Tokyo or even an Osaka. There isn't a tremendous amount to see within the city limits, but Nagoya is a great base for some half day/full day jaunts.

The Aichi Prefecture in which Nagoya is located is home to the Toyota family of corporations including, most notably from a global perspective, the Toyota Motor Corporation (though in fact the original entity of the group was named Toyoda after the founder's surname, and was a loom manufacturing concern). With advance booking one is able to take a tour of certain of the car manufacturing plants, so I arranged a visit for when I knew I would be in the region. I'm not the most technically minded, but I DO enjoy free activities, so the tour and visit to the accompanying museum were a great way to spend a few hours. Jest aside though, it's a pretty serious operation they've got going there and one can understand the pervasive fear from the 80s that the Japanese were going to dominate the world economically. The tour also hammered home how endlessly complex almost every single facet of modern life is and how densely the threads that connect us are woven - 30,000 parts are used in every car.
The other trip I took from from Nagoya, this time a full day, was to Magome, a restored former postal station on one of the historic routes to Tokyo (then named Edo), from which there is a hike to Tsumago, another restored postal town, which one can, and I did, extend to another, more ordinary, town called Nagiso. The route was classic Japan as you imagine it, the Japan of famous wandering poet Basho,  with rice fields, wooden buildings and waterfalls, all nestled among and between green forested hills and hiking it was much of what I want out of travel, distilled into a daytrip. Incidentally, Basho sounds like a character from the British comics I read as a kid. Chortle.

After Nagoya, I travelled to Takayama, a calm and quite touristy mountain town, where the plan was to ease up a little on the sightseeing and once again spend a few slower-paced days re-energising. My time was mostly spent walking around the town and its rural surrounds, interspersed with copious amounts of coffee and the best in non-fiction that the Kindle store has to offer. I did make one side trip to the village of Shirakawago, a village containing a concentration of buildings in the unique 'Gasho' architectural style (the word means 'praying hands', see pictures below) that have been declared a World Heritage Site (all caps) by whomever it is that declares these things (the UN? The elders of Zion? Big Pharma?).

Finally, I visited Kanazawa, on the sea of Japan, where I enjoyed a couple of days cycling around the sites and checking some final items of the Japan to-do list (karaoke). A particular highlight was the misleadingly nicknamed ninja temple (it is a temple, but it has nothing to do with ninjas). The reason for the name is that the temple contains numerous trapdoors and hidden exits, designed to facilitate the protection of the the local feudal lord from the forces of the Shogunate.

Now for some thoughts and observations:

I tend to imagine that feelings and emotions have a certain linearity, i.e, if I feel this hungry/tired/happy/sad right now, then I'll feel all the better/worse, as applicable, in proportion to the passage of time. In reality, I err dramatically when I try to extrapolate future mental states from the sensations and experiences of a given moment, and this is all the more true when travelling, under circumstances of heightened uncertainty as to what lies over the next hill, in the next town.

The polarity involved in solo travel is dramatic, the highs are higher and the lows, while not necessarily qualitatively lower, are the harder to bear without the company of close friends and family.

There is a difficulty to just appreciating something beautiful or interesting or even funny without being able to turn to another to validate the feeling. I suspect that mastering this would be a valuable life skill across multiple contexts.

There is a certain paradox to the perception of time that links in to the distinction between the experiencing self and the remembering self (as elucidated in the work of Daniel Kahneman). While we generally say 'time flies when you're having fun' or describe the clock as stationary during a boring experience, I believe that this is true only on the level of the experiencing self. In contrast, when looked at retrospectively, the opposite is true; the sheer amount of memories from a month full of stimulating activities and peak experiences lead it to feel like a sizeable chunk of time, whereas entire years of drudgery can slide by in what seems like an instant, leaving only the barest of an impression in the memory.

Mistakes come up often in travel (a wrong turn, missing out on a site that would have been of interest, choosing a bad hostel) and this has led me to realise that, as a rule, I find it hard to let mistakes just be what they are instead of either (a) rationalising them away or (b) blowing them out of all proportion in an internal self loathing tantrum.

Well, I will leave you with that for now, as the train is finally leaving. I'm en route to Nikko (of three monkeys fame) where I plan to spend my last day or so in Japan, before I'm off to South Korea, from where I'll post next.


Alright, I'm gonna make like a Japanese banana and.... be really expensive.

Much love,

David

Trying out whatever this is at the Toyota musuem

Rice fields forever 

Tsumago main street 

Lookout at Shirakawago 

Thatched Gasho house at Shirakawago