Monthly Archives: November 2009

Changdeokgung Palace and magic

Adventures, Seoul,

There are many people in the world who travel to far away lands and then proceed to do nothing but sit by pools in 5-star hotels and party in Western-style bars. There are others who visit a new place and immediately seek out the museums and true historical sites. I fit somewhere in between but definitely closer to the museums and monuments people than the hotels and hot-spots types. I like to discover a place by walking around and looking at things. Sometimes those things turn out to be monuments or historical places. In Seoul, for example, I saw an historically important palace.

Changdeokgung Palace complex is particularly important because it is apparently the best preserved in Seoul, as well as being a UNESCO world heritage site.  The complex was apparently completed in 1412 and home to Korean royalty as recently as 1910. It was the principle palace for many of the Joseon Kings who ruled the area for 300 years. The palace was burnt down during the Japanese invasion in 1592 and the story goes that either during that invasion or one of the others the Japanese actually took parts of the palace with them. It was all subsequently restored, however, and now stands empty but in perfect condition in it’s beautiful garden grounds. One site describes this as the ‘most truly Korean’ of all the palaces in it’s architecture, the choice to build the palace up and down the many terraces in the gardens and the integration of the buildings into the natural settings. This could all be fanciful but it definitely felt as though the palaces belonged in their surroundings.

We took the bus to the palace – the gate of which is clearly visible from the road, making it super-easy to find from the bus, paid our 3000 won entry fee and joined the crowds at the gate. It turns out  (which we didn’t realise at the time) that it is not permissible to see the palace without being part of a guided tour, and as we had missed the English tour, we joined up with the next large group – we think they were speaking Korean. Tours are offered in Korean, English, Chinese and possibly Japanese. It turns out, on further investigation, that tours are obligatory every day except Thursdays, when there are no guided tours, the entry fee increases to 15000 won and you are allowed to wander around by yourself, perhaps indicating the advantages of researching before venturing out on adventures.

This being a Saturday afternoon, we trailed along behind a group. It didn’t really matter, though. There were occasional English signs explaining what one part or another of the palace was used for or when it was built. To be honest, because this palace was used for so long and Korean political history during that period seems to be rather convoluted and involve an awful lot of alliances with, attempts to prevent invasion by and eventual invasions by foreign powers, plus the standard palace intrigue and occasional citizen unhappiness, it would be really difficult to make sense of it all and establish any sort of mental chronology without a lot more information and context than could be provided by information boards and an 80-minute tour. I want to learn more about the palace and have started to read bits and pieces  since, but all that is something that can happen any time with a book and/or the internet. It has little, apart from providing context, to do with actually being in the place and walking around a real-life palace.

Perhaps some context of my own at this point: Africa doesn’t really go in for palaces much. At least Southern Africa doesn’t. This doesn’t mean we don’t have royals and court intrigue, but there are fewer buildings. Because I also haven’t travelled to Europe and not really to many other places, I don’t think I’ve ever been into a palace before. I suppose it’s one of those moments when you realise history is real. It’s also a realisation that as much as my skin may be pale, my context is thoroughly African. In my mind, the system of tribal leadership and rulers like Shaka and Moshoeshoe are real monarchies. They are the ones that I have grown up learning about and which have therefore become tangible and real in my mind. I know, intellectually, that Europe and other areas had many royals and still has some floating around but they have always been as ephemeral to me as characters in story books or pop stars on TV. Before this weekend, I didn’t know I felt this way. I realise that that is an odd thing to say, but it seems to be true. Walking around that palace in the pouring rain, the idea of royalty, of kings and queens and princes and queen mothers actually living in these rooms and sitting in these halls and walking between the buildings, on a day just like that day – a rainy, chilly autumn afternoon – suddenly seemed, for the first time, so interesting and real.

At the palace, beyond the magnificent gate, called Tonhwamun and the oldest wooden gate in Seoul, we wandered across little stone bridges, past strategically-placed trees in magnificent autumn colours. The next entrance led us to a large rectangular courtyard, with corridors of wooden shutters or doors on the two longer sides and an entrance at either short end. These entrances are what arches would be in some other architectural styles – open spaces leading from one area to another – except that here they are shaped more like large rectangular open doorways, each with a tradition Korean roof over the top. By somewhat strange coincidence, in the taxi home last night (it was too cold for the bus), I found myself inadvertently watching a Korean period drama on the the mini, in-car TV and I could just picture those soldiers lining up in that courtyard. Of course, I have no idea if the period was right but I found it so easy to imagine real soldiers and servants actually being and doing in that space.

Some of the areas of the palace were a little sad. We came across one signboard explaining that what we were looking at was Daejojeon, the king and queen’s residence, but that this was also the place where the Joseon dynasty held its last cabinet meeting to deliberate on the annexation of Korea by Japan. My imagination conjured up images of royal banquets and dinners and lives of joys and complications, all overlayed with the imagined picture that last desperate meeting and the sense of impending loss because the Japanese are coming.

At another point, we stopped at a slightly separate building, built later and in a slightly different style, from what we could gather, to accommodate the king taking a second wife. This area includes a beautiful round, tower-balcony that reminded me a lot of the widow’s walks I saw in Key West, Florida. I can picture the ousted, forgotten first wife, whose crime was her inability to give the king a son, standing on that tower for hours looking out over the palace grounds that used to be hers. Of course, I could have misunderstood the history completely, but that is what I pictured at the time.

There are areas of the palace that still contain some furniture, such as tables and chairs, writing desks and something that could be a throne or a very impressive bed, all of which is fascinatingly ornate and appears even more so in the otherwise empty rooms. All over there are heavy wooden doors and thin paper screens, green and red and blue and white paint, painted flowers and designs and incredibly detailed, busy decorations on the underside of roofs. Walking around, it felt like all the rooms and corridors and courtyards were inter-leading and connected – the place must be something of a maze to find your way around without a map. There was also a sense of regularity; because almost all walls and windows and buildings use the same colour scheme, the variations in design like the lattice-windows installed by one of the kings (apparently indicating his taste for foreign ideas)  provide texture rather than disrupting the whole.

We did not see the lotus pond or a couple of other interesting parts of the palace complex but after 45 minutes we were fairly thoroughly soaked and so decided to leave that for another day and get out of the rain. I really enjoyed seeing the palace. The friend I was with has seen one or two of the others and says that this is the most spectacular, if somewhat annoyingly controlled (in that you can’t explore alone). I’d like to see some others and return to this one on another visit to Seoul. Of course, I’d also like to see Changdoekgung in the sunshine but there was something magical about seeing it on a rainy autumn day; somehow the rain and the season made it so much more authentic, so much easier to imagine not just the feasts and royal occasions but kings and queens and emperors really living there and just going about their day.

Jump on a high-speed train

Adventures, Seoul, trains and train stations, , , ,

This weekend, for the first time, I experienced the phenomenon of the high-speed train. In the past 6 or 7 years, I’ve spent plenty of time in South African airports and on planes but other distance public transport systems in SA are not very well-developed and there are certainly no high-speed trains. I’ve caught a train here in Korea once before, when we went to hang-gliding in Changwon but then I was with people who had already figured out the train system. This time I was alone, nervous and determined – I really needed to get out of town and a weekend with an old friend was calling. So, on Saturday morning, I got up early and headed off on a new adventure.

Early is a relative terms when one works hours as odd mine (3pm to 11pm). It was after 8:30am by the time I left home. Daegu was waking up on a crisp, overcast autumn morning. I was quite glad of my coat. The morning was also little misty and as I walked down to the main road to catch a taxi I passed children on their way to school and people starting to move through the hazy misty morning . I caught the first taxi I could find and headed to Dongdaegu station.

At the station, I headed straight for the automatic ticket issuing machine. The train stations in Korea also have the option of buying tickets from actual people at ticket counters but the machines have English and it’s easier to use a machine with English than to battle through the inevitability of miscommunication with a ticket salesperson, particularly when one is impatient to get going. After one or two tries, I managed to work the machine (which isn’t complicated – I just entered the wrong information or pressed the wrong things once or twice) and reached the confirmation screen where they showed the ticket they could offer me. There were no tickets in economy facing in the ‘forward’ direction. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but they did have one available facing in the ‘opposite’ direction. I decided to buy it. The ticket cost 38 600 won. I fed in my four 10 000 won notes and got my change and ticket.

I had about 10 minutes to find the track and get on the train. For those who have travelled with me before, the idea of me cutting it this fine will seem improbable. I am one of those people who tends to arrive at the airport at least an hour before the flight ‘just in case’. This time I recklessly took a chance. I’m quite familiar with the subway stations in Korea which all have English signs (along with the Korean and pictures) directing travellers to the platforms (‘tracks’ the signs say). The train stations do too. I went through the doors to the area where the platforms are, crossing the sign painted on the floor indicating that I was entering the ‘paid area’ and followed signs that informed me that the 9:05 KTX train to Seoul was leaving from platform 9.

I got to the platform with two minutes to spare, just as the loudspeaker crackled into action and announced that the train I was taking would be 3 minutes late. They really do measure time in minutes here – imagine a world where you know when the train will arrive to the last minute? I studied my ticket. All the writing on the ticket is in Korean. Although I can read some of this now – or at least figure out what the word sounds like – it didn’t help me figure out which carriage and seat I was looking for. I knew from the last time that the tickets usually show the coach and seat numbers, just as airline boarding passes do. I found something that looked like a ticket number (1D) but the only other number I could find was 9, which I assumed was the platform number. In the absence of any other information, I decided that this must actually be the carriage number, too, and the platform number wasn’t shown.

Just then the train arrived. I rushed to carriage 9 and got on. I always feel a little out of my depth when travelling on a new kind of public transport or a new kind of train or plane, especially when everyone around me knows exactly where they’re going and I’m just getting in the way trying to figure it all out. This time I was lucky: my seat was just in front of the door where I entered. I had a window seat tucked in the corner, which was perfect for me. I quickly stowed my backpack, coat and scarf and settled down.

As I watched Daegu station slide away, I was filled with excitement. I love travelling and trains make me particularly happy. My seat was facing in the ‘opposite’ direction, which, it turned out, meant that my seat faced the back of the train. I was a little worried that this might be a bad thing given that I am prone to motion-sickness, but it was fine. The person in the seat next to me was an American – I suspected when I saw him and then he got a phone-call and I heard his accent – but thankfully not someone who felt the need to engage in conversation. So I was able to enjoy the trip in uninterrupted wonder as I watched the scenery pass by and to be peaceful for a bit. I think that is really the joy of travel for me – the quiet moments of uninterrupted peace while watching the world pass by.

I tried to take pictures, too, but it turns out it is really difficult to take good pictures through the window of a train when travelling at 300km/h, especially when facing backwards. The KTX trip to Seoul is remarkably brief. Until the KTX was built, the ‘express’ train used to take four hours. The KTX takes around 1 hour 45 minutes. I suppose that is a little like taking just under 2 hours by train from Johannesburg to Durban. Both flights (Joburg-Durban and Seoul-Daegu) take about an hour but thinking about the waiting time and the need to be there early, it’s pretty much equivalent. I’d say the KTX and flying are equivalent for comfort – the seats could be airline seats, with perhaps a little more legroom (I find the legroom on planes sufficient so don’t notice it much) and there are bathrooms and the like. The KTX also has the option of buying snacks from the snack and drink carts that come rattling down the aisles, just like (at least budget) airlines. The sense of speed and distance is similar, as is the time taken. The view makes me happy on both, although they are slightly different – on a plane, I adore watching the world pass below me but am occasionally frustrated by cloud cover and the that flying so high makes it difficult to see contours and definition; on the train, I loved the close-up views but was sometimes frustrated by tunnels and barriers next to the rails, particularly on bridges. Perhaps the greatest difference between the two is that the KTX is cheaper and there are none of the delays and irritations of the extensive security checks of modern airports. Also, perhaps because of the KTX and because Korea is a small country, flights are few and far between whereas the trains run extremely regularly.

Arriving in Seoul station, I disembarked and joined the crowds walking up just one set of stairs to the arrivals area. Seoul station is spacious and feels a lot like my favourite airports, so I felt immediately at home and went off with a smile to find my friend.

The return trip was just as easy. We got to the station at about 12:55 and found the auto-ticketing machines. I bought a ticket, this time costing 38 000 won and facing forward. My friend was a little shocked to realise that I’d bought a ticket leaving at 13:15 (it was now 13:05). I would normally have been shocked, too. In fact, in the past I’d have been in a panic. But somehow it seemed normal this time.

A quick goodbye and I headed for the platform (ridiculously easy to find) and boarded my train. This time I was seated right in the middle of the carriage. This carriage – perhaps all of them, I didn’t look before – had half the seats facing in one direction and half facing in the other, with the middle two sets of seats facing each other over a little fold-out table. I was in one of these middle seats, which was lovely and spacious. I was in the aisle seat but there was no-one in the seat next to me or the two facing me, so I felt a little as if I had four seats to myself.

On the trip up to Seoul, the day had been quite misty and overcast but Monday was crisp and clear so I could see for ages and ages and had a perfect view of farmlands and towns and wooded hills and mountains, with the usual temple complexes dotted in between. It was another opportunity to confirm that train travel is a lovely way to enjoy the view and get to know a country. I arrived back in Daegu at 15:02 (exactly on time), with just enough time to pop home and drop my luggage before heading off to work. I’ve always been a fan of train travel but I’m now particularly enamoured with the quick, comfortable and plane-like experience of the KTX and am already planning my next quick trip on a high-speed train.

Heart and Seoul

Seoul

I’ve been in Korea for four months now. In that time, I’ve enjoyed bits and not enjoyed other bits but I certainly haven’t had the experience of falling in love with the place which others sometimes talk about. This past weekend, I went to Seoul to spend time with an old friend and do some exploring in Korea’s huge, sprawling capital. I arrived on a rainy Saturday morning and the weather didn’t warm up the whole weekend, although thankfully by Sunday it has stopped pouring with rain. In spite of the cold and wet, by day two of the visit I found myself becoming aware of how different the two cities are. Seoul is beautiful and the area my friend is in is particularly lovely, made even more special by the fact that she lives on an attractive university campus. Marita van der Vyver talks in her book Where the Heart Is about how she went to Provence in October partly because she didn’t want to get swept off her feet by the picture-postcard loveliness of the place in summer, and found herself falling in love with the October beauty of it instead. I went to Seoul on a cold, wet autumn weekend and it didn’t take long for me to find myself, ever so slightly, just a very little bit, falling in love with Seoul.

The next few posts will be a series of individual tales of various parts of the weekend, exploring with a friend, enjoying wonderful dinners and new places and falling a little in love with Korea’s capital.