Disoriented David : 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