While I may not write a lot of science here anymore (I have other venues for that!), I do like to keep track of my travels. Previously we’ve been to Japan (you can view part one, two, three, four, and five) and hiked Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England (you and view part one, two, three and four).
This time, we were headed to South Korea! Officially, I was headed to the World Conference of Science Journalists. Yes. That conference. But if you’re going to take a 14 hour plane flight for a conference, you might as well grab the Mr. and get there a week or so early to see the country.
Day 1
After the usual 14 hour plane ride in which small children scream (which I understand, I feel like screaming on planes, too), we arrived in Incheon, the port city which houses the major airport, with carry on packs and about two sentences of Korean. We arrived to the sight of this:
As we had flown over the US and across the Pacific, a MERS outbreak was just beginning in South Korea. There would be much, much more to come.
We departed the airport almost immediately after on a train for Gyeong-ju, a small city in the far southeastern corner of the country.We both fell (dangerously) asleep on the train, but arrived at the main train station without incident.
Finding our hotel, however, was another matter. I had purchased an international plan for my phone from Verizon. Unsurprisingly, Verizon let me down. I had no signal. Luckily, it’s very easy to purchase a South Korean SIM card for a very low price. I recommend going with that. It’s so much easier and your phone will work just like in the US.
But this also means that any maps will come up in Korean, so we cannot decipher them. And with some trouble figuring out Korean address systems…our taxi driver got lost. He finally dropped us off in the middle of a random street with a worried expression and a lot of shrugging.
It was past 9pm, we had been up for almost 48 hours. After wandering up and down that area of the city with our packs, trying two difference versions of the address and coming up with (in one case) a two-story brick wall, we settled on asking for directions. We recalled the advice from a friend of ours who said, when asking for directions in Korea, to stick with people under the age of 30. The two teenage boys we pounced on spoke perfect English. They took over our map, called the hotel for us to ask if they were missing any Americans, and within five minutes had us on our way. And as we walked toward the hotel, the proprietor and her friend were waving at us from the corner with great relief.
The hotel was not actually a hotel at all. Instead it was a hanok, or traditional Korean house. These are lovely, airy buildings surrounding a central courtyard. Built entirely of wood, they have sliding wooden doors. Ours also had a central room with a tea ceremony laid out (which we had no idea how to work with and ended up being too nervous to use. It was lovely to look at though). But when in a Korean Hanok, you sleep in a traditional manner too. And that means in flat, white bedrolls on the floor. Thankfully, we were too exhausted to care, and really, it’s quite comfortable compared to many camping experiences. No rocks in your back.
Some notes on life in a traditional Korean house and on Korea in general:
1. Don’t blow your nose at the table. Considering the food is often mind-blowingly spicy, it’s a rough proposition.
2. Take off your shoes in the house.
3. Don’t drink the tap water. As far as I could tell, it was perfectly safe, but all our hosts informed us carefully that there was bottled water in the fridge and it would be replaced daily, and everyone strongly implied to us that we shouldn’t drink the tap water. Given our hiking, we usually needed a good 4-5 liters per person per day, but luckily, most tourist sites have large public water fountains, and the shrines are usually accompanied by flowing springs. We never lacked for water.
4. Don’t flush the toilet paper. This was something I had a very tough time getting used to. In modern facilities in Seoul, this didn’t apply, but in the hanok, there was a closed trashcan placed suggestively on top of the toilet, and a trash can in every single toilet stall. You use the toilet paper, and then…throw it away. Luckily, the toilets are kept spotlessly clean, and in general it never smelled worse than any American toilet I’ve been in (and better than most, to be honest). I found two stories about why this is. The first is that the septic tank system cannot handle the toilet paper. Specifically, due to having only a two chambered septic tank, the toilet paper doesn’t break down. It clogs the pipes of the people who clean the tanks, who complain…and so people don’t flush the toilet paper. The second just-so story I found on why this is was that due to the same septic tank problem and an issue with very small pipes, the toilets will, apparently, violently reject your toilet paper. I was unwilling to test this hypothesis and threw the toilet paper away.
5. A SIM card is a life saver, but every place has WiFi. Unfortunately, this means I didn’t really get to “unplug” like I had hoped. But it was very useful.
Day 2
After an extremely early morning (jet lag will make us productive tourists, at least!), and breakfast (provided by the hotel, and which consisted of two yogurts and a BLT, so I’m glad I packed us plenty of energy bars and dried fruit) we hiked off to find the Tourist Information Office. On the way, we came in for a very loud scolding in Korean from an old lady, which we were completely unable to comprehend. From what I can tell, she was chastising us for holding hands in public.
Maps obtained, we headed toward the tumuli. Gyeongju is the former seat of the Silla Dynasty (57 BCE – 935 CE), a group that ruled a good 2/3 of the Korean peninsula. They buried their nobles and royalty in massive burial mounds, each a good 25 feet tall. The mounds are dotted in and around Gyeongju, and the residents do their part to keep them up, including mowing them, which looks like this:
What you are seeing there is a lawnmower suspended on ropes, so they can mow the steep slopes.
Many of the mounds are grouped together into a lovely park (which only costs about 1,500 to get in, or about $1.50), full of atmospheric music and large black and white birds that appear to be the Korean version of crows. You can even go inside one mound which is in the process of excavation, as they try to figure out just who was buried here and why. The one you can go inside has examples of some of the treasures found in the mounds, including three pronged, high gold crowns with jade ornaments shaped like fat commas.
After wandering amongst the mounds, we headed to a large park (free!) across the street, where we stumbled on the famous Cheomseongdae observatory tower.
(It may not look like much, but how high could YOU build in 600, huh?)
This tower is on most maps of Korea, and was used for astronomical observation.
Behind the tower, among many gardens filled with growing vegetables, rises the base of a large hill, where they are excavating the remains of what is believed to be the biggest fortress in the area. But right now, the only bit left standing is the ice house.
We moved on toward the museum for lunch. This I do not recommend. There are loads of places near the observatory which will serve you better. The museum is lovely, but its cafe only has small snacks. We grabbed some snacks (the oil and sesame puff balls tasted…like you would expect them to taste, I suppose), and then headed in to the museum. This museum is also free, and really excellently laid out. Exhibits include a massive, two story high bell which was built in 772, to call Buddhists in for meditation. Korea (or rather, the Silla dynasty) went Buddhist in a very quick conversion around 600 or so. They were also Confucian. Now, there are many Buddhists still around, but there is also a very large Christian population.
The rest of the museum was treasures of the Silla dynasty and ancient local artifacts (also, museum curators. What. Is. An. Adze. Seriously. You can’t just be like “this is an adze” and expect us to know what the egg-shaped rock is for. As it was, we came up with many hilarious ideas of what “adzing” is. Right now it’s a sport that involves bonking people on the head while wearing ancient forms of rollerblades). Historians believe people have been in the area since 780,000 BCE.
(A crown from the Silla dynasty. Note the comma-shaped jade pieces.)
Next up, we hiked toward Mt. Namsan, one of the many mountains in the area. But this one is just south of Gyeong-ju and is covered in Buddhist images, carved into the rocks. Many are more than 1000 years old.
(A 600 year old Buddha, hanging out on the mountainside. As you do.)
The mountain is also covered in small, grassy mounds. We weren’t sure (there was no one to ask), but we think they might be graves of Buddhists who wished to be buried on the mountain.
We hiked back down the mountain and headed for dinner, since eating hadn’t really been on our priority list for the day. A lady shoved us into a restaurant serving ssambap, which is, as far as we could tell, meat cooked on a brazier, which is then wrapped with rice and toppings in lettuce. The main dish was surrounded by 25 or so tiny dishes of things, from picked veggies to fish to tiny crabs cooked whole, and at least 5 different kinds of kinchi, or spicy pickled cabbage. It was delicious.
This is also where we discovered that Korean food would not be blasting us with spice this trip. Every time we asked for something very spicy, we were met with a look of panic and warnings that “you cannot eat that.” This persisted throughout the trip. No matter what we tried to order, we were warned off the spicy food. Apparently we Westerners have shown ourselves to be very weak, indeed.
Keep an eye out for part 2, coming soon.
