TSJAP On Tour: South-Korea: Strong & great Tastes - Omnipresent Military

Our itinerary through South-Korea

(16/04/2016 - 16/05/2016; 1500 km)

We arrive very early in the morning at Seoul Incheon Airport. We are pretty tired but also very excited. A whole new chapter is starting now: we have left hot and humid South East Asia and we have no idea what to expect in South Korea. Besides great phones, Gangnam Style and the weird neighbor North Korea I don't have many pictures on my mind.

But the next four weeks will help me with that 'problem': we have a great time and we love to be in South Korea.

At the immigration we get a stamp for a 90 days tourist permission and here we are. First we need some food and have breakfast at a nice cafe. With a cup frozen green milk tea in our hand, we enjoy that every seat has its own headphone, I-pad and TV-screens. Welcome to high-tech-land South Korea! The kids love it!

The airport is far away from the city and we take the bus to get to our hostel. Everything is written in Korean, not much English spoken here either. But still it's really easy to find the way, there is always someone to help and point ways. Everything is so clean, neat and calm, it feels good. The bus driver welcomes us by explaining safety rules and then bows to his knees. We are amazed and excited, people bow to say thank you, that is something new!

Incheon Airport: Pauli still in pajama from the night flight,
checks out the fancy equipment of a cafe during breakfast.

Every guest has it's own digital jukebox and can listen
to music from all over the planet.

On our way we pass alleys of white and rose blooming cherry trees, really wonderful. And we decide to have a look at the famous cherry blossom tree parks in Seoul when we arrive. After some search and carrying our heavy bags through Itaewon, a nice little neighborhood in Seoul we find our hostel and soon fall asleep, tired of the long flight and the short night. When we wake up later in the evening a storm is hitting the Korean capital with rain and it begins to dawn to me that we are witnessing the end of the cherry blossom season. The rain and the wind have done their best: the next day the wonderful white snow is gone...

Our first dinner in South Korea is great: we enter a little restaurant (no English, no pictures) point at the plates of our neighbors and here we go. We have no idea what we eat, but we learn quickly. There are usually a lot of little plates, a set of chopsticks and a spoon. Koreans like it sour, salty and often bitter. Kimchi for example is THE national food, served at every meal: breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is a cabbage that has rested in chilli, sugar, salt, pepper, acid and some other things we don't know, for some time and makes a great side dish going with anything. We really like it and I would probably recognize it even with closed eyes for its special flavor.

Seoul: For dinner, we check out a local
restaurant near the hostel.
We are overwhelmed by the new different tastes.

Discovering flavored rice wine.
Very good, but pretty strong.

No English Menu so we had to rely on the
pictures at the wall.

Seoul: Not much space for gardening,
so people use the roof-tops. View from our hostel.

Even though cherry flowers are gone, we visit the parks anyway and take a long walk through Seoul, across the Han river. We are trying to get used to our new surroundings. We are back in the developed world. New cars, new highways, clean air, shops everywhere, we pay with credit card all the time, clean public transport... It's nice to have all this convenience back, on the other hand it means that our time in tropic South East Asia is really over.

It's cool and we see spring flowers everywhere. It feels a bit like a time warp, since we didn't have any spring feelings until now at all, suddenly seasons are back.

Seoul: Afternoon-walk along the Han River
to the National Assembly.

Pauli prefers the view from above.

After the tropical heat of Vietnam, the blossoms and the weather
spread the well known spring-feeling.

For the blooming of the cherry trees,
we are one day too late. The night after we
arrived brought a lot a rain & wind
and washing off the colorful beauty
from the branches.

Still fun.

So you don't miss the right angle.

Colorful trees in front of the National Assembly Building.

Some last cherry blossoms are still left.

Wonderful walk with some fun pictures.

Some details remind us of the United States,
like the highway signs.

Seoul: Drummers practicing at the riverside.

On the Han River: Cherry blossom part on a boat.
Probably the last one.

Seoul metropolitan area has about 26 million inhabitants and the inner city counts 85 metro stations. The Korean Peninsula is very mountainous and has thick forests, so to build cities there is actually not too much space. Skyscrapers solve the problem and we see hundreds of these high apartment buildings.

The city has a huge area, but public transport is excellent, metro is really fast, clean, but deep in the ground. It also serves as a shelter for possible North Korean missile attacks as signs tell us. Aha.

Right, North Korea: the border is only 60 km away from Seoul...

Antonia has carried her bandage bravely on her broken arm for almost six weeks and it is time to find out how the nails can be taken out of her arm. Torsten makes an appointment for her at an international hospital (where no English is spoken, only one interpreter can help) and the surgery is scheduled in one week. They will have to cut the skin open again to get out the two nails and the doctors tell us that she would have to stay at least three days in hospital. We are bit astonished, three days for a surgery of thirty minutes? That seems very long and after some discussions they explain that a stay at a day hospital would also be possible, but the narcosis would then only be a local one. Our brave little girl decides for the quick lane, staying for three days in a hospital is nothing she likes anymore either.

We have decided to stay at least two weeks in Seoul, so we really have a lot of time to explore the city. And we really really like it. Despite the many people living here it is a very relaxed place. Great public transport, a lot of parks and walkways makes walking around a fun thing. Exploring by walking is perfectly possible. There are cafes everywhere, really everywhere, so to find a place to rest is not a problem at all. It's much more expensive than the countries we have visited before though. It feels like I am not putting away my credit card anymore, it can be used everywhere. A quick digital signature and hop there the money goes, very convenient...;-)

We had already tried some Korean food in Malaysia and the kids loved a sort Korean pancake made from Mungobeans. Since we arrived they have been looking for these pan cakes and luckily we find a whole section where they only make these pan cakes on the huge Dongdaemun Market. What a feast! The little stalls have small tables, pickled onions and free tea with it and that makes a great lunch. Other visitors invite us to have some Makgeolli, light rice wine with the food, very friendly and tasty. We will come back several times to have lunch here and try all the different foods the stalls offer. Torsten goes for the more crazy things that the rest of us only comments with: yuck!

Almost everything in Korea was destroyed during the Korean War in the fifties and that also means that there is not much left of an old city in Seoul. All palaces have been rebuilt, none of them are antique, as most of the old Hanok houses. Hanok houses are one story high, have dark wooden structures, white facades, wooden sliding Windows, floor heating (ondol) and black round tiles on their roofs. They are the traditional Korean housings. They used to be looked down at as poor farmers houses, today they are treated as national heritage, wonderfully restored, rebuild, as museums, hotels and still normal living houses.

There is a whole quarter of Hanoks in Seoul that can be visited, the Bukchong Hanok Village. It is right in a little valley between two royal palaces on hills and used to be the place to live for administration and civil servants of the court. The place has a wonderful atmosphere, narrow roads climbing up hills, cafes and restaurants in the little old Hanoks and friendly people from the city of Seoul guiding tourists through the area. There are a lot of tourist too, also a lot of Koreans. They love to dress up in their traditional costumes and dresses and a phone can be found in every hand to take pictures... We will see the wonderful pink, violet and green dresses everywhere. They resemble the national flower Hibiscus, blooming in spring.

It is nice to stay such a long time at one place. We need some time for home work and administrational stuff. We start the planning for our trip to Japan and Canada, all kinds of things need to be done. We even book our flight home to Brussels from Canada, which we try to forget after the booking the best we can… ☺ We are really enjoying every moment of our journey, it feels as if everything is made to be remembered a life time…

Most of the organizational stuff is done in the morning and the afternoons are free for some more exploring and sightseeing. One afternoon we walk to the National Museum, which turns out to be quite a walk but leads us along huge housing quarters of American military families living in Seoul and reminds us of the presence of American soldiers in South Korea.

Before finding the National Museum we accidentally enter another museum, which turns out to be the Museum for the Korean Language, the Hangeul. Korean is not as difficult as it looks actually. It is made out of 40 letters, invented by King Semjong the Great in 1443. The letters form by three one combined letter and one after the other they make a sentence. So it is not a hieroglyph language like Chinese, where single symbols make a word, but it is a sound language like ours, just different letters. The language is one of the things that still connects the two Korean parts, it is spoken in North and South the same way.

Finally at the National Museum, we are amazed by its size. What a big building, marble everywhere, gigantic halls and show rooms, very impressive. We take a walk through Korean history and learn about the relation to China, the different kingdoms, the unification and the difficult relation to Japan. We admire golden crowns, paintings and drawings. The Silla period, from around 600 to 900 AC, when the whole peninsula was united seems to have been one with high wealth and develoment. It is nice to fill up blanks and gain all that knowledge, later we will recognize the things we have learned at the royal palaces, temples and monasteries we will visit.

We stroll around town and explore a river valley in the middle of the city center that is really amazing and lets us dream to have the same in Brussels. The Cheonggyecheon river used to be hidden underneath concrete that had on top an elevated four-lane (!) highway. The highway would carry 160.000 cars per day. Sometime around the year 2000 the highway needed a renovation and a broad discussion about the highway, traffic in the inner city and quality of life in a city started. Do you see any similarities to Bruxelles-ma-belle? ;-)

But here it comes: instead of planning more lanes, double, triple or whatever: it was decided to break the whole thing down, open up the river again and make a 8,4 km-long park out of it. With it came investments to more public traffic in Seoul: cars disappeared and bus and metro transport was improved. The price tag of 300 million Dollars was very high, but what a fantastic decision for people living in Seoul! The river is great for all creatures: we saw trouts swimming in the clear water and cranes flying around. People come during lunch time to hang their feet in the cooling water, families come for pick nicks, kids jump across rocks to cross the river and it is a great place for festivities.

What a great thing that would be: Zenne-ma-belle, when will we see you again?

One big museum that shouldn't be missed when visiting Seoul is the Korean War Memorial. The Korean War is also called "The forgotten war", because unlike the Vietnam War for example it is not engraved into history books of mankind by photos and life coverage. And here it is again, a date that has entered the memory of a whole nation: 625. June 25th 1950, when North Korea invaded the South.

Korea had been under Japanese control since 1910. And when Japan surrendered in 1945 after Hiroshima and Nagasaki a new solution had to be found for Korea. It did not occur to any of the participating parties to ask Koreans if they might feel like taking care of themselves though… We are in the middle of the Cold War now: Soviet Union wants it, US wants it. When negotiations for the surrender treaty with Japan come up, two young US officers are told to find a solution for an American part of Korea. They literally have half an hour, take a National Geographic map and find the 38. Parallel, dividing the country in almost two same sized halves and leaving Seoul in the American part. Surprisingly the Soviets agree immediately to the proposal and that is what we still find today: North and South Korea divided at the 38. Parallel.

Kim Il Sung showed up on the scene around 1946. (Already in 1949 he started calling himself “Great Leader”, establishing his one man show.)

From 1945 on some halfhearted attempts were made to reunite the two parts, but when both held separate elections in 1948 the dies were cast.

Kim Il Sung had asked Stalin several times to be allowed to invade South Korea and in 1949 he finally got permission, right after the last American soldiers had left the peninsula as foreseen in the agreement of 1945. He also knew that Americans had only left small arms behind, no tanks, no airplanes. Very handy. And that Americans had said more than one time that they would not be willing to fight another war in the Pacific at that time. For Stalin time was ripe. And last but not least Kimmetje was convinced that he would be welcomed with open arms in the South.

On June 25th 1950 they went across the 38. Parallel. Then fought their way down to the city of Busan, at the most southern tip of the peninsula within two months, leaving behind smoking ruins. Then the UN under American lead entered the war starting from Seoul, driving the northern forces up to the Chinese border, leaving behind smoking ruins. Then China got nervous because General McArthur wouldn’t stop far enough from the Chinese border and they sent in thousands of soldiers to fight the UN army back to –surprise!- the 38. Parallel, leaving behind smoking ruins. Three armies, crossing the whole country three times in three years, almost three million people dead, a whole country in ashes and they all meet at the same place where the conflict started. How terribly senseless human decisions can be.

And that is status quo still today: an armistice, a highly secured border, the two Koreans are actually still at war.

When we arrive at the War Museum a memorial service for Australian soldiers is going on. Apparently families of soldiers who have fought in the Korean War between 1950 and 1953 are here today to remember them. There are huge black walls where all the names of soldiers that died are engraved. There is a sort system in these walls, all soldiers are sorted by their home countries. US soldiers are even sorted by their home state. Over 30 000 American soldiers died in Korea.

Johann, Antonia and me we fall silent as we see an older women pointing at one of the names saying it was her father.

We come back to this impressive place several times, visiting the huge museum halls with its life interpretations of the Korean War, its expositions of planes and tanks and memorial statues. It even has a Kids War Museum section to teach children about armored conflicts, especially in the history of Korea. The message of the museum is pacific on first sight, but fighting for your country is of course something not put into doubt.

It is very obvious that Koreans have put a lot of emphasize into mentioning everywhere which countries have come to the help of South Korea and how many victims there were. American, Australian, Belgian flags can be found everywhere. Johann asks me why there are no German flags and we start history lesson from the beginning… ;-)

Besides the museum we also visit the real “crime scene”: the DMZ as they call it. The Demilitarized Zone at the 38. Parallel. If it wasn’t so sad it was funny: there is no other place on earth that heavily armored.

I will also visit Panmunjom the place where the armistice was signed. You have probably seen pictures of the three blue wooden pavilions, half placed in the north, half in the south, where negotiations took place. I will visit the place on my own since the place is considered a security sensitive area and kids are only allowed above 11.

The border is only some 60 km away from Seoul. We drive next to the Han river north and soon after we have left urban boundaries I can see that the whole river is fenced by barbed wire, watch towers and trails for controls. We are told that in the past a lot of northern spies have swam the river directly to Seoul and that this needed to be stopped.

Sunshine policy of Kim Dae Jung from 1999 to 2007 had brought some change in the relations between the two Koreas. ‘Interaction’ and ‘economic assistance’ were the magic words, even short family reunions were possible. The Nobel peace prize was awarded to that wonderful utopic idea to bring changes through talking… ;-) It ended when it became obvious that the Kims were more interested in nuclear rockets. Some of the ‘sunshine’ can still be seen today. In Koasan just behind the border a huge industrial zone had been established where 58 000 workers from the north worked for companies from the south. The 850 workers from the South would take a special border train every day to get to work. We visit the huge complex of the modern train station on our way. It is all empty, huge maps on the wall show a railway system that connects Korea to the rest of the world, via Pyongyang…

It is pretty touching though, to be here. On the platform they have installed a piece of the Berlin Wall and there is an exposition with pictures of Berlin in 1989. People celebrating at the Brandenburger Gate next to a picture of the two train drivers from North and South shaking hands, having tears in their eyes. German President Joachim Gauck has been here just a couple of weeks ago and quotes of his freedom (of course!) speech are engraved in metal next to the graffiti wall. The deserted platform makes me sad, no train to arrive soon.

Further towards the border there are lookout places with binoculars. We are not allowed to point our cameras directly towards the north, but we are allowed to take a look. What I see is a wood stripped field area that reminds me of pictures of the death zone at the inner German border, no place to hide. I can hear squeaking marching music from huge loud speakers installed north of us. I am not sure how they want to convince someone with that noise. I also get to see the world’s tallest flag pole in a North Korean Village. Everyone needs something to be proud of. By the way, the South Koreans call the village “Propaganda Village”, because apparently no one lives in the newly renovated houses. They tell us, that people come from time to time to mow the lawn though.

The biggest tourist attraction in South Korea is a tunnel. Made by North Korea. Apparently they dug six tunnels (or more?), four have been found so far, number three can be visited. It is a steep walk down and we all have to wear helmets. The tunnel is partly painted with black paint, North Korea wanted to prove that it had been searching for coal and accidentally dug underneath southern territory… ;-) The tunnel is about 1 km long, 500 m underneath the South. They found the tunnel by accident when an explosion that was obviously too big shook the earth above. It is a tourist spot today, with a loud South Korean propaganda video, souvenir shop and lots of tourists.

Panmunjom is one of the strangest places I have ever seen. Before I go I have to sign a document stating that I will follow the dress code (!): no ripped jeans, no sandals, no tops and no military looking clothing. We are told that photos of us wearing these things would be taken by the North to be used for propaganda, to show to their own people how poor, decadent, etc we are. Aha. Welcome! ;-)

Two young American UN peacekeeping mission soldiers take over some km before Panmunjom. Our South Korean guide has to stay at the Visitors Center because South Koreans are not allowed so close to the border. We even change to special busses and get a short security briefing that they will repeat over and over again: “Don’t wave, stand or point to the North. Don’t make any rapid moves, don’t stop walking, stay within the group. Don’t take any pictures of the southern (!) military constructions, we will have to delete these photos from your camera.” etc.

We enter the little pavilion, which has one door to the north, that is closed and guarded by a soldier while we are there and a door to the south where we walk in. The room looks like an old fashioned conference room and we can walk back and forth between the two Koreas inside.

By the way, you could do the whole tour from the North also. You will have to join a tour because no one is allowed to travel alone in North Korea, but visiting Panmunjom is most certainly included. Only would then the northern door of the pavilion be open and the southern one guarded, probably by two soldiers, not only guarding the door, but also one another.

As a matter of fact I meet a UK traveler on my tour who has just been ten days before in North Korea on the same tour. He tells us that he had been taken to the border-near-propaganda village to prove that there are in fact living people, but he now realizes that there hadn’t been the big flagpole in the village they showed him, so maybe it wasn’t the right village… who knows? This is a pure propaganda place. Who knows right and wrong here? Only watching is already interesting and scary enough.

We learn that South Korean soldiers are chosen especially by their height to serve at Panmunjom (to be taller than the guys from North Korea) and they also have to obtain a black belt of Taekwondo. (Whatever that is supposed to help in an area full with heavy weapons…) While we are there, at least ten of them are guarding the pavilion, facing north, standing still in a sort Taekwondo position, ready to jump any second. This adds to the tension at the place.

Leaving the pavilion we have time to look at the buildings of the northern side and ask questions to the American officer. We see a guard from North Korea, for the rest the area is totally silent. The US officer tells us that they call him Bob, because during his 24 h shift he sometimes “bobs-away” behind a pillar, probably to rest his feet a bit.

We take a last stop at the “bridge of no return”, where prisoners of war were exchanged. Every prisoner on both sides had to decide where he wanted to go to and cross the bridge, after that decision there was no return. We are not allowed to get out of the bus at the bridge, security reasons. Actually some time ago visitors were allowed to walk around here, but then President Bill (!) Clinton came to visit and his natural talent to shake everyone’s hand became a bit dangerous here, because he apparently decided to walk across the bridge to shake hands with North Korean guards (which he didn’t do at the end). I don’t want to imagine the sweaty shirts of security and guards around him trying to convince him to stay… Since then: no more visitors on foot allowed close to the bridge.

On the southern side there are also villages within the demilitarized zone, called “Freedom Villages”. (Did I already mention that there was propaganda in the air…? ;-)

People who live there are exempted from tax paying, but also have curfew times starting as early as 8 pm. Our UN tour guide soldier tells us that one of his duties would be to guard the school festivities of the village once a year, without having a look at it, because he would have to face North the whole time to watch the (probably invisible) enemy.

When we drive home there is some time to reflect, but actually there is only one thought: This whole thing is totally crazy.

We know how fast things can change. We have seen 1989. And from what we see in South Korea they are doing every effort to prepare day X. We even found in one of the museums a list of “lessons learnt” from other countries that went through a reunification. It is so hard to imagine though, the two countries seem so far apart in everything even though they are so close.

Seoul is home to several enlisted world heritage places. Six royal palaces can be found here. None of them have survived the war rage in the 50ties, all of them are reconstructions but not less beautiful and interesting. Changdeokgung Palace is our first visit. It is an old summer palace of the royal family, with a huge thrown hall and great views across the mountains. It is a relaxing visit, a lot of school kids are with us. We have also purchased tickets for the Secret Garden and actually before the tour starts I don’t feel like walking a boring park for 1 ½ hours. But this garden is the biggest surprise of the day! It is absolutely beautiful and worth every minute. It is actually a large wood with hidden lakes, valleys and pavilions, Zen gardens and old trees. Very beautiful!

To flee some rain we hide in the interesting Contemporary History Museum of Korea and learn all about the struggle to establish democracy in this wonderful country. Another gap in my knowledge filled; I didn’t know anything about the long fight with autocratic regimes and we are very impressed by the strength of the Korean democratic movement.

Finally it is the day of Antonias surgery. The doctors had promised that Torsten would be allowed to stay with her while the nail would be taken out. But at the last moment they say because of sanitary reasons it is not possible. And our brave little girl decides that she can do that on her own, she follows the only Korean speaking doctor who will show her Korean cartoons on his phone to distract her a bit and after 30 minutes cutting and sowing is done. We are very proud of her!

To celebrate the day we have bought tickets for the dance show “YOU:LL” at the Jeongdong Theater down town, really wonderful, fast, magic and a wonderful mix of old fighting moves and dances.

We read about the “miracle on the Han river”, referring to “the miracle on the Rhine”, which was used to describe the economic growth of West Germany after World War II and learn a lot about how rapidly Korea developed from an undeveloped war-destroyed country to a developed country. Samsung, Hyundai, LG, Daewoo, all Korean giant conglomerates, that they call Chaebol: meaning “wealth” (chae) + “clan” (bol) and we decide to have a look at it. At “Hyundai Motorstudio Seoul” on the other side of the river at Gangnam quarter we enjoy a whole morning looking at cars from an different angel (literally) and cool design, new hybrids look promising.

Further south at Gangnam there is another highlight waiting for us! We have been wanting to visit a place where we can see Koreas own fighting sport: Taekwondo! Taekwondo is actually not even an old sport. It was established after 1945 as a mix of old fighting techniques and new ideas; it was supposed to be anything but not Japanese… Today it is a school sport, taught from elementary school on. The moves look a lot like flying, are very fast and hard, very impressive. We make it to a one hour presentation at the Kukkiwon National Taekwondo Headquarter and it leaves us stunning. Pauli is a bit shocked at the beginning (“Sind schon tot schon, Mama!”) but soon copies the enthusiastic clapping and shouting of his brother and sister. I couldn’t count the number of wooden boards that have been hit into pieces by feet, hands and fists of the fighters during the show, sometimes at heights over three meters. It is fast, furious and very impressive. Again, a new world! At the end we are allowed to try ourselves…

One of the main royal palaces in Seoul is Gyoengbokgung Palace, built in 1395, rebuilt after the Korean War. It is pretty crowded, but we get to see the change of the guards. Actors march in historical uniforms and perform a ceremony that is made up from old paintings, it is nice to see, but has a bit the touristy taste. By now we are a bit tired of sightseeing palaces, they all look quite the same. (If you ever plan a trip to Seoul go see Changdeokgung with its wonderful garden and leave the rest and you won’t miss anything!) Also the numbers of Buddhist temples we have seen so far on our trip has really satisfied us and we leave some “must-sees” aside…

We like the people in Seoul, everyone is friendly and calm, though it is very hard to communicate since almost no one speaks English. (Keep asking myself about the high PISA score of South Korea…) The only thing that starts to get on our nerves are older generation Koreans who, as soon as they see our children feel obliged to get very close touch them. Johann usually gets a hit on his shoulders or even his butt, Antonia’s curls are being untwisted by curious fingers and Pauli gets his cheeks pinched all the time. And usually there is no escape, it can even happen that the “attack” comes unexpected from behind. It is not just a single phenomenon, after some time we have to think of a strategy to avoid “granny terror” as we call it.

And one other thing that we will find in whole Korea becomes a bit annoying, sometimes even dangerous: Korean drivers love to ignore red lights. They just don’t stop, when there is a red light. More than once we will have the situation that we stop our (rental-) car at a red light and left and right everyone will pass us… We have to watch out and instruct the kids to be very cautious too.

We like being in Seoul, it feels more and more like normal life: taking the metro, buying groceries, cooking at the hostel or eating great Korean food at a local restaurant or on the market... We even start to greet the owner of the Taco Restaurant in our street where we had dinner several times. It starts to feel like home.

So, it is time to move on. ;-)

We visit the little town of Suwon south of Seoul with its world heritage fortress walls and towers. It is a nice and sunny day and we sit and watch kite runners.

One day we leave Seoul. We want to go south and take two weeks to see the rural part of the country. Around mid may we want to catch a ship from Busan across the Japanese Sea to Japan.

At Gangneung on the other side of the peninsula we find a lovely hostel in a private house. There is great breakfast and Johann and Antonia are allowed to try on some traditional dresses that the kids of the house have left behind.

We like the little villages and we love the rough coast! It is wonderful to feel the stormy wind and look at the rocks and the wild sea.

At Gangneung we visit a private collection of a man that fell in love with Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb. And he didn’t only invent the light bulb, as we learn but all kinds of other things. It is a strange and lovely museum, very old-fashioned: all items are stuffed into vitrines, it is not possible to look at everything, there are thousands of things…

And some km further down south, we are again reminded on where we are. We visit the “Freedom Park”, a collection of old planes and artifacts of the Korean War and most interestingly a North Korean spy submarine ship that crashed here in 2006. North Korean officers executed eleven crew members, when they eventually reached the coast after they abandoned the broken ship and then fled the scene. 22 South Korean civilians were killed by the fleeing North Korean spies. It took South Korean military several days to find them, at the end all of them were dead, only one person is missing. In the ship we can see where the captain of the submarine tried to burn documents in his cabin. When visiting parks at coast lines usually there are signs that explain the habitat, what kind of birds there are, what flowers grow on the rocks and so on, here at the eastern coast of South Korea there are signs with detailed information on what a North Korean submarine passing by would look like and what emergency number to call, would the visitor ever think to have seen a submarine while taking a walk on the coast. We try to remember the number, but I am not sure if I would recognize a submarine… A lot of coastal parts are closed by barbed wires.

Korea’s main religion is Buddhism. And at the beginning of May it is Buddhas birthday. All temples we visit on our way are preparing for the big day with wonderful decoration. The temples are a delight for the eye and the camera lens, really really wonderful.

Guinsa monastery is one of the head quarters of Buddhism in Korea. It can host a couple of thousands of worshipers and welcomes a lot of people who want to do a ‘temple stay’. This is a very popular thing to do in hectic-modern-digital-South Korea: coming to stay at a temple, leaving all technical devices at home, following the rhythm of a monastery, praying and serving. For a couple of days.

Guinsa is such a place, in the middle of stunning mountains, hidden in a steep valley. We climb all the way up to the top and have a free Buddhist-vegan-lunch on our way in one of the temples. The food is terrible, to be honest. As the place is very big it hosts around one thousand visitors at once sometimes and the kitchen is maybe a bit overwhelmed. We had thought about joining a temple stay, but then refrained when we heard that this would mean sleeping in a room with all other visitors, getting up at three in the morning to pray with 126 bows, having a rice soup breakfast and quiet times with a monk. With our bunch of three we weren’t sure we could handle this schedule…

When we leave the monastery strong wind has started and we have to push ourselves through the storm, until we stand still in awe when several trees next to us break and fall down the steep valley. No one gets hurt, but the damage is quite high, electricity to the monastery probably got cut for a while.

But we enjoy the visit at Guinsa very much, a magic place high in the mountains!

And we enjoy more mountains! At Sobaeksan we find a little hotel in the middle of a marvelous valley for the night, some river hiking included. The hotel is actually still closed, we are the only guests and have dinner with the owners in the little restaurant, where all the things that needed to be cleaned and rearranged before the opening are piled up.

A little further south in Gyeongbuk we visit a rice vodka distillery. The vodka is called Soju in Korea and was distilled for the first time around the 13th century. A nice little museum of the family owned distillery shows the production process. We will bring a bottle home, if anyone is interested!

Gyeongbuk is also home to a nice open air museum of old hanok houses, where we have lunch in a local restaurant to try the fish from the river.

Hahoe Village is one of the places in Korea to see old rural living and village structures. Our Lonely planet explains that it is a hidden secret and lonely wandering through the little alleys would be a wonderful journey to the past. When we arrive there are literally hundreds of tourists with us, all rooms are full, we have overlooked that it is Golden Week in Korea, THE travel and meeting-family-time of the year besides the New Year festivities…

We are very lucky to find a small overprized room that night, with ondol (floor-) heating underneath the hard floor that keeps us sweating in our sleeping bags. But visiting the little village the next day is still very nice and interesting.

At Jikjisa Village with its marvelous monastery we take a break and even find a nice bungalow to rent and have great barbecues in the evening. It is time to do some homework, draw pictures, relax and enjoy wonderful Jikjisa temple. Jikjisa temple is one of the most beautiful I have seen in Korea, the houses and worship temples are so lovely in the woods with its river, a magic place.

We are ready to see more temples, so we stop at Haeinsa, which isn’t only a monastery like all the others, but houses an old collection of wooden blocks with engraved old Buddhist texts, the Tripitaka Koreana. Interestingly they are stored in an open wooden house, summer heat and winter freezing, they survived it for over seven centuries. Sometime in the 1960ies it was decided to put them in a concrete building, equipped with the most modern air conditions, ‘to save them’. But then after some time the wooden panels started to rot, despite all the attempts to host them with best technical equipment. So they were put back into their century old open wooden shed, where they are still today.

On our way to Gyeongju, the old capital of Korea we stop at Daegu to play at a playground, where we finally find someone who speaks some English. With the young mother watching her kids on the playground like us, we have a nice chat about Korean education with her, really interesting! We learn that almost all kids join private academies in the afternoon after school has finished to study more algebra and other stuff from school. Activities are not only about learning to play an instrument or doing sports, but actually keeping up with lessons from school. (And the PISA question comes up again…)

Gyeongju was, besides being the capital between 57 BC an 935 AD the funeral place for the kings of the 1000-year-long Silla Empire. A bit like at the pyramids the dead were put into little chambers, then instead of stones, dirt was piled upon them to make a big hill. When we enter the little city, we can see them immediately, green hills everywhere and we take a look at the interesting things found in the graves.

Bulguksa monastery is another world heritage site: for its age, size, wooden carvings, everything. But we stop only shortly on our way, we have seen so many temples on our way… At the National Museum in Seoul we had seen a presentation about the way the Seokguram Buddha Grotto at Bulguksa was built into the mountain and finally we are here to see it ourselves.

Not far from Bulguksa waits the last monastery of our Korea journey. Golgulsa is as beautiful as all the other temples, but is special because of the monks living there practicing Sunmudo, an ancient form of martial arts. And every afternoon visitors are welcome to have a look at a Sunmudo presentation. So we are there one afternoon, the sun is about to disappear behind the mountains and on a terrace in front of an old temple a monk shows us the old fighting meditation. Amazing moves, high concentration, meditation, again a new world. Those are the moments that I am so thankful for on our journey, glimpses into different worlds, never to be forgotten.

At Gyeonju a message of Leif arrives. He lets us know, that for personal reasons he cannot pick up our Emma-car in Kuala Lumpur as planned and cancels the whole agreement. His message is short and clear and we are pretty much in shock. We are at least 6000 km away from Malaysia, in a couple of days we have tickets for the ship to Japan and we have no idea how to manage the shipping of our car from that distance. So the whole project that had kept us busy for such a long time already in Kuala Lumpur starts from scratch again.

We decide after some brain storming that Torsten will fly back to Kuala Lumpur as soon as possible, I will stay with the kids in Busan, some km further south. We call and write to several shipping companies to see if they would still be able to ship our car, the security that is watching our car needs to be informed, the colleagues of SAP in Kuala Lumpur need to know, we change bookings in Korea, book flights for Torsten and a hostel for the rest of us, all at the same time, we are pretty busy again. Needless to say that we are now forced to take any deal for the shipment, negotiating the prize will not be possible anymore now…

It is a tough time for all of us. I am very worried. Port Klang, where Torsten will have to do the shipping is not a safe place as we know. It is a poor and shabby town with high numbers of Dengue fever, now that the rainy season has hit Malaysia. He will have to manage everything on his own, we will not be able to help him at all. I have no idea how I will know, if something happens to him, nor how I would be able to help. We have to find a way to get as much cash money as possible to pay the first rate of the shipping in Malaysian money, so Torsten takes all credit cards we have with him. I stay in Korea with some cash and an EC-card (that actually doesn’t work here), no idea how I would have managed to get all of us back home in case Torsten would not have made it back to Korea. What a terrible sh…

We wait in Busan and try to get time over with homework and playground times, while Torsten heads back to Kuala Lumpur.

Torsten insert.

I cannot say how happy I am to see Torsten back in Busan! He is tired, worn out and dirty and full with stories from Kuala Lumpur. We hope that the deal will hold what it promises and that Emma will be back mid-August at the port of Antwerp!

Our time in Korea is over and we really liked the place! We had so many happy moments here. Friendly and calm people, great sights and a century old history. This mix of old traditions and hyper-modern daily life is highly interesting and great to visit.

At the harbor, while waiting for our ship to Shimonoseki in Japan we meet Cordelia and her bike from Hamburg. What a nice coincidence, she also waits for her ship to Fukuoka in Japan and we have a great time chatting, which we continue later by mail. She bikes Japan from North to South and even speaks Japanese! For the curiousness she took a little detour to Korea. She tells us some of her experiences of Japan and we get excited, what an interesting and exotic place that must be! (And it is! Read our next blog!)

We enter our ship and are happy about our great cabins for the 12 h journey. And it feels like Japan already: Yen, Sushi and our first Japanese beer. Johann points it out very clearly: “It’s Monday night and we are on a ship to Japan, just like Phileas Fogg! I can’t imagine a regular Monday evening at the moment.”

Life is great! Japan we come! Our next adventure!

Crossing the Han River.
It's quite windy today.

Seoul: For lunch we enjoy our first Korean hot pot. Kids loved it.

Seoul: Playtime in our hostel.
Pauli enjoys the spacious room.

Seoul: The city hall shaped like a 'wave of glass'.
Pretty controversial architecture of a country, which suffers
from the forces of nature.

Seoul: Another delicious meal with countless bowls.

Seoul: The River Cheonggyecheon creates a nice atmosphere
in the modern city center. After covering it for many decades
with Highways it was reopened in 2005.

Seoul: Even birds (I guess here a Heron) like the
oasis within the busy city.

Also in Korea people love to take picturs with us.

Seoul: preparing the project ...

... of letting paper boats to water ...

... each representing one of teh TSJAPies.

Ready to go!

Test-Run works.

Preparing the Go-Live!

Rescuing a floater

It worked. We got the video produced as greeting to
grandmas birthday.

Seoul: The legendary Gwangjang Market.

Fermented vegetables (Kimchi).

Antonia in the middle of the scene.

Pauli got doubtlessly the best place to discover the market.

Imagine the smells, tastes, colors, sounds ....

Fish pile.

What's this?

Grounding mung beans into a paste, before ...

... they are fired to Bindaetteok (Mung Bean Pancakes).

YUMMIE!!!!

I skip that one ...

... and that one.

But there is so much else to choose from.

;)

The colors ...

... of spring in Korea.

Seoul: Paper-Workshop in
historic village (Bukchon Hanok) downtown.

People rent retro-dresses
to take a walk through Seouls old quarters.

Always ready for photo-shootings.

Seouls' contrasts: Over the rooftops of Bukchon Hankok.

Nicely renovated houses.

Bukchon Hankok: Insights in traditional houses.

Doors suspended from ceiling.

"and what's in here?"

Korean red maple.

People younger than 60 were always friendly, like here.

Seoul: Monument of King Sejong,
founder of the Korean writing called 'Hangul'.

Behind the monument high mountains framing Seoul.

Huge square in the city of Seoul. Not sure why, they didn't
make us feel uncomfortable.

Back on the market. The vendor already knows the kids and
what they like. We perceive it as a privilage to have the time
to return to the same place again.

Doesn't look that good, but it's YUMMIE.

When ordering in one of the many cafes
(every village has more cafés than any other business)
you get an electronic, which starts to blink once your coffee
is ready.

And again ;) How many countries did we cross where the
sticker from teh manufacturing process is kept on the window
pretending that the owner just bought that car.