nanoomi

So… did you notice it’s cold?

Or as the well-spoken young lady at the bus stop said, “It’s cold. It’s cold. It’s cold. Oh! It’s cold. It’s cold. It’s cold. It’s cold. It’s cold.”

But cold is OK with me: see, I’ve actually found a few things about Winter that I actually like.

1. Miscommunicating with my wife. On the same day, my lovely wife will describe the weather as “It’s really, really cold! Better be ready, or you’ll have a bad time!” and I will describe the weather as “Yeah, it’s a bit cold today.”

So that when she tells me about the weather, I overdress… a lot. And when I tell her about the weather, she underdresses. A lot. This is just entertaining, and leads to some fun teasing.

(the best part? my mother-in-law overstates the cold at exactly the same rate as my wife)

2. The opportunity for chivalry: I always advise every male I know to carry an extra pair of mittens, or a scarf they don’t need, when they meet their lady-friends in Korea, because there’s a saying in Korea that “A fashionable woman is cold in the winter” (as Wifeoseyo translated it to me). Because I always have some extra warm-gear in my pockets, I can give them to her at the drop of a hat, and dear readers, she loves it.

Chivalry, you see, is not quite dead yet in Korea, as far as I can tell.

Read the full story

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5114153448/

Tucked between Cheonhodae-ro (천호대로) and Cheonggyecheon (청계천) on the southwest side of Dapsimni Station is the little neighborhood of Yongdapdong (용답동).  Before getting to the moderately well-known antique market on the opposite side of the avenue, Liz and I decided to pop in to this area for a look-see.  It was pleasantly busy on a Saturday afternoon, people out and about doing weekend neighborhood things: buying groceries, doing a bit of shopping, or just strolling about.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5113552755/

Down one street outside Exit 5, a modified truck was delivering live seafood to a restaurant.  A man in gumboots was standing in the bed, scooping fish out of large coolers and depositing them in the display aquariums outside the eatery.  His partner was running hoses built in to the truck to the curbside storm drain, getting rid of unnecessary water now that their merchandise had been unloaded.  Neither Liz nor I had seen this draining process before and both thought it was pretty neat – one of those little bits of ingenuity that you never think of but when you see it, they are both obvious and modestly remarkable.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5114152728/

A bit further back in the neighborhood we stopped for a snack of tteokbokki, and while we ate we watched an ajeosshi make a duplicate key for a customer at his corner shop: just a machine set up on the street, a stool, a small rack of uncut keys, and an electronic buffer and some other shoe repair and polishing equipment.  A truck was selling 대파 (enormous green onions) that looked to be dying, their tops brownish and crisp, and a bit further down a fishmonger had stopped his cart of frozen fish.  When we walked past he was slicing flakes from one for a pair of ajummas, the slivers coming off in pieces about the size of a thick poker chip.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5113552649/in/photostream/

Back at the station we headed for Dapsimni Antique Town from Exit 1.  The area’s antique market coalesced here between the 1960s and 1980s, many of the shops moving from areas near Cheonggyecheon and Ahyeon-dong.

The Antique Town consists of three buildings, Dapsimni Antique Town 2-dong, 5-dong, and 6-dong; and further east, near Janganpyeong Station (장안펑) is Janganpyeong Antique Town, which we didn’t visit.  Each of the three buildings in the group is a long brick structure with one or two floors divided into a few dozen shops.  We started at 5-dong, which was incredibly sleepy, with no sign of any actual business taking place anywhere.  About the only sign of life was a group of antique sellers playing cards in one of the shops.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5114152990/in/photostream/

We were looking at an enormous metal mask with horsehair eyebrows and moustache leaning up against a hallway wall when the proprietor of Taehyeon (태현) came out and invited us into his shop.  Neither one of us knows the first thing about antiques and didn’t have any sort of idea about the authenticity or value or quality of the things in the shop (or anywhere else in Dapsimni), but it was fun to poke around nevertheless.  There were small wooden fish, drums, jewel boxes with mother-of-pearl inlay, and a pair of wedding gowns that the owner said were 100 years old.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5114153048/in/photostream/

The next shop we stopped in was Song Juk Dang (송죽당), run by 김기순.  It was larger than Taehyeon and rather more eclectic.  To be found inside are: old radios and record players, a Southeast Asian xylophone, a small ceramic of a reclining nude, combs, pins, and several colorful perfume bottles, one of which depicts two lovers on a riverbank, mid-coitus, proving that the Joseon era wasn’t all just Hangeul-inventing and Japanese-repelling.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5114153114/in/photostream/

My favorite find in the store, however, was far less titillating: a little yellow hand-held radio, exactly like one that my family had and that I used to listen to the local Oldies station back in the early Nineties.  Not exactly an antique but, for this visitor at least, the most nostalgia-inducing item in the store.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5113553107/in/photostream/

The hallways between shops are lined with antiques to and between 2-, 5-, and 6-dong we came across wooden bird cages, metal Buddhas of all different sizes, a large wooden statue of Guan Yu, a ship’s wheel, several Chinese medicine chests, and a set of stocks complete with chains.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5113553357/in/photostream/

Probably our favorite sighting, however, came when we left.  Outside, with its back to us, a 1.5 meter tall bronze Buddha was sitting in the back of a truck parked on the side of the street, waiting to be brought into one of the shops, every bit the picture of Zen calm perched on his movable throne.  As we were admiring the curious juxtaposition a couple of the building’s security guards and another ajeosshi came out and very skillfully maneuvered the fat man onto a rolling platform, then took him inside where he’d sit with the same serene calm.  A good thing too, because, judging by the lack of business actually occurring at the Antique Town, he’d be there for a long time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5114153284/in/photostream/

Dapsimni Antique Town 2-, 5-, and 6-dong

Exit 1 or 2

Walk one block northeast; the market buildings are between the first and second streets running parallel to Cheonhodae-ro (천호대로).

Song Juk Dang (송죽당)

In Dapsimni Antique Town 5-dong

#103, Samhee Sangga-5-dong, 530-9

Dapsimni 5-dong, Dongdaemun-gu

동대문구 답십리5동 530-9

삼희상가5동 103호

(02) 2245-3967

H.P.: 010-6727-1205

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48017739@N03/5114153346/in/photostream/

Just a few of the beautiful fall colors along the way.

My friend Rob from fellow K-blog Roboseyo was kind enough to include me on his recent Gangwon-do trip. After our excursion to Jangneung and nearby Bodeoksa, we found our way to Gossi cave (고씨 동굴, or Go-sshi dong-gul) not too far away.

Read the full story

Read the full story

I’m often asked where I would first take visitors to Seoul. And the answer is always the same — Changdeokgung Palace.

The second-oldest of Seoul’s Joseon-era royal palaces and the best preserved (most of Gyeongbokgung was reconstructed in the 19th century), Changdeokgung is one of Korea’s most sublime works of traditional architecture and a most deserved UNESCO World Heritage Site. We explored some of the palace in a photo essay in July, but this time, we’ll take a look at the real “jewel within a jewel,” the palace’s extensive royal gardens, frequently referred to in English as the “Secret Garden.”

In my opinion, the best time to visit Changdeokgung’s gardens is now, when the autumn foliage is at its most beautiful.

*I’ve taken some of the past criticism to heart and dialled down the colors.

**If you haven’t seen them yet, check out Jason Teale’s stunning photographs of Changdeokgung at night, and Steve’s video of the Changdeokgung night tour.

UPDATE: Take a look at Kim Sungjin’s photos of Changdeokgung in autumn here.

Donhwamun Gate

The oldest of Seoul’s palace entrance gates, the current Donhwamun Gate dates from a 1607 reconstruction. It’s a simple yet beautiful structure, lacking the stone base seen on Gyeongbokgung Palace’s main entrance, Gwanghwamun. The only real alteration to the original structure came in the early 20th century, when the lower thresholds were removed to allow royal motor vehicles to enter the palace.

This photo was taken a week ago, the first time I tried to visit the palace gardens. There’s a daily limit to the number of people allowed into the gardens, however, and as this was a Sunday at the start of the fall foliage season, it was already sold out. Heck, for that matter, I took this Thursday and Friday off, and my attempt to get in on Thursday met with the same end. The lesson here is, if you’re going to visit the gardens in fall, either get there early or reserve a spot on the Internet.

Seonjeongjeon Hall

I finally managed to get in on Friday… but as you can see, the day was a tad overcast.

Anyway, the unique blue-tile roof structure you see here is the Seonjeongjeon Hall, which dates from 1647. It served as King’s executive office, where he discussed matters of state with his ministers. It’s not particularly big, but it’s Korea’s only remaining blue-tile roofed palace building. It is interesting to note that the tradition of covering the roof of the office of Korea’s chief executive in blue tile continues to this day in Cheong Wa Dae, the presidential mansion of the Republic of Korea.

Seongjeongak Hall

The Seongjeonggak used to be part of a larger complex on the eastern side of the palace where the Crown Prince used to reside. The complex has now been split into two by a path leading to the Huwon Garden. The Seongjeongak was where the Prince would study the Confucian classics. During the Japanese colonial era, it became a royal infirmary and was accordingly called the Naeuiwon. There’s some old stone mortars in there to remind people of the King’s old herbalists.

Huwon Garden (The Secret Garden)

The Huwon (“Rear Garden”) is considered the epitome of Korean garden landscaping. It’s also probably one of the most picturesque locations in Korea. If you really want to appreciate the beauty of Korean traditional architecture, this is where you come.

The Huwon was first created in 1406, a year after Changdeokgung Palace was founded, although most of the ponds and pavilions you see today date from the 17th and 18th centuries. It consists of several inner and outer gardens, all connected by walking paths, and like all Korean traditional gardens, its designers strove to harmonize the natural and artificial to create a landscape as naturalistic as possible. In explaining Korean traditional gardening, Chung Jae-hoon, Professor of Traditional Landscape Architecture at Korean National University of Cultural Heritage, writes:

The conceptual roots of Korean culture lie in the worship of nature. The imported ideology of Buddhism was added to this around the fourth century, while Taoist thought became widely disseminated about the seventh century. It was from this ideological background that the Korean garden was created. From the 15th century, the Song Confucianism of Zhu xi became the ruling ideology of Joseon, along with landscape architecture coming under the influence of such concepts as yin-yang, the five elements, and geomancy.

In particular, Song Confucianism’s view of nature strongly influenced Joseon gardens. It was through these influences that Joseon art was created, with its naturalistic style untouched by artifice, while a worldly, practical lifestyle flourished, based on moderation and diligence. Indeed, this led to the development of a highly humanistic and straight-forward naturalistic culture.

The Huwon is more than just a pretty place — it’s a microcosm of the universe as it was seen by the people of Joseon Korea.

The Huwon has gone by many names, and is still frequently called by Koreans the Biwon, or “Secret Garden.” In fact, the palace ticket booth uses the English term “Secret Garden.” Frankly, I don’t like to use that name, as the garden is more properly known as the “Huwon,” and its widely believed the term “Biwon” is a colonial Japanese convention (whether this is true is a matter of debate, apparently), but I suppose “Secret Garden” has a nice ambiance to it.

As a royal pleasure garden, the Huwon was off-limits to the general public throughout the Joseon Dynasty (hence the “Secret Garden” name). Thankfully, it’s now open to one and all, but in the interest of preservation, only a limited number of people are allowed in a day, and on guided tours only (Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese).

Anyway, on to the photos!

Yep, it’s autumn! The Huwon is lovely every season — in fact, one of its many charms is how it puts on different faces throughout the year — but I particularly love it in autumn, when the trees turn color. It really does turn into a riot of yellow, red and green hues. As you can see, the photographers are out in force, too. I’d never seen so many high-end DSLRs in my life.

Inside the Huwon is a rather curious complex called the Yeongyeongdang. Built on the order of King Sunjo in 1828 as a residence for Crown Prince Hyomyeong, the complex was built in the style of a Korean rural gentry’s home, and was so designed to give the young prince a taste of gentry life. In fact, the complex is considered one of the finest examples of Joseon residential architecture in Korea, despite its location on the grounds of a palace. As is typical of Korean homes, the gate is placed so to prevent a direct view inside, and there are separate wings for men and women, as well as courtyards and a small garden. Atypical for a palace building, but fully in keeping with its rural gentry design, the complex is not painted — the wood has been left in its natural splendor, giving the complex that wonderfully rustic look favored by Joseon’s Confucian gentlemen.

The story of Crown Prince Hyomyeong, coincidently, is a tragic one, both personally and nationally. King Sunjo turned over day-to-day governance to a 19-year-old Hyomyeong in 1827. Sunjo was only 38 at the time of his semi-retirement, but he’d been on the thrown since age 11, his health was failing, and after watching his in-laws — the powerful Andong Kim family — monopolise power by waging brutal political wars against their factional enemies (part of which included initiating the first major persecution of Catholics in 1801), the king had reached the point of “you can take this job and shove it.” The crown prince, meanwhile, was young, energetic and reform-minded. With the help of his in-laws, the Pungyang Jo family — bitter rivals of the Andong Kim clan — he tried to restrain the power of the Andong Kims, but he died after just three years at the age of 22, before he could take the throne. What followed was several decades of proxy rule by the royal in-laws — mostly the Andong Kims but with a period of rule by the Pungyang Jos — largely characterised by nepotism and corruption: it’s on this period that many of the negative preconceptions of the Joseon Dynasty are based*. The mismanagement that plagued Korea in this period put the nation in a terrible position to cope with the coming of the West and Japan in the latter half of the 19th century.

*Not that I’m blaming the Andong Kims for destroying Korea. Having spent my first years in Andong’s cultural sphere, and having known more than a few Andong Kims, I actually have a soft spot for the clan.

Autumn wonderland! The garden area near the Yeongyeongdang gets really colorful with its bright reds and yellows.

The Buyongji Pond area (see below) gets all the attention, but the Aeyeonji Pond is where the cool colors are at — see the photos here. The pond and pavilion were built in 1692. It’s all very simple, but in that you find its beauty.

The best known part of the Huwon — and the part most praised by Korean architecture experts — is the area around Buyongji Pond. The pond was dug in 1707, and most of the surrounding pavilions were built not long after. The pond is an architectural representation of the Korean traditional view of the cosmos: the square pond represents Earth, while the small circular island with a solitary pine represents Heaven. The various pavilions, set at different locations and heights, offer a multitude of views of the scenery.

The pavilion we see here is the Buyeongjeong, which was built with the pond in 1707. In addition to providing nice views of the pond, it also served as a celebration venue for students who passed the Confucian civil service exam. With its two legs in the pond, the pavilion has been likened to a beautiful lotus blossom in full bloom. A historical highlight was when King Jeonjo and his retainers used the pavilion to go fishing in 1795.

The pavilion at the top of the hill across from the Buyeongjeong is the Juhamnu, the royal library. The first floor used to hold the famed Gyujeonggak, which is maintained today by Seoul National University.

On the east side of Buyongji Pond is the Yeonghwadang, built in 1692. Originally a pleasure pavilion for the King, it was later used as the venue for the gwageo, the all-important Confucian civil service exam of the Joseon Dynasty.

Deeper into the garden is another pond and pavilion complex. In the old days, you had to join a separate tour to see it, but now, tours of the Huwon take you to the entire garden. In the old days, there used to be four separate square ponds, but in the colonial era, they were combined into one fan-shaped pond, now called the Banwolji Pond. Two of the Huwon’s more unusually shaped pavilions, the Gwallamjeong and Jondeokjeong, are located here. The Gwallamjeong, built in either the late Joseon Dynasty or early colonial era, is shaped like an open fan, while the Jondeokjeong, with its two-level roof, dates from 1644. I particularly like the stone bridge.

Now, beyond this, there’s another garden area, the Ongnyucheon, but I had to leave a bit early, unfortunately.

More Info

Entry into the Huwon is 5,000 won, not including the 3,000 won you need to pay to enter Changdeokgung itself. You can purchase the ticket at the ticket booth in front of the palace or at a separate ticket booth in front of the garden.

As I mentioned above, you need to join a guided tour. To see the schedule, see here.

Getting There

The palace is short walk from Exit 3 of Anguk Station, Line 3.

For the last weekend of my parents’ month-long stay in Korea, the three of us took a trip to Danyang, a county in North Chungcheon Province, right in the middle of Korea.

I have to admit, I went into this trip with more than a little trepidation. Even though Lonely Planet had called Danyang “a little gem,” or words to that effect, I’ve had enough experience travelling around Korea to know that some ebulliently promoted towns and countryside spots can turn out to be crushing disappointments. Indeed, in my time as a writer/editor, I recall writing a travel piece about a grindingly dull Korean island that made it sound like some kind of long-lost, bucolic Eden.

Read the full story

So Chris in South Korea tagged me to share my three best travel tips. He shared his own here. Among his tips were to use Korea’s super-useful tourist help line, packing light, and getting it on in the love motels. Blogger David S. Wills, the artist formerly known as… a different K-blog… added his own very worthwhile pointers, and now here are mine:

1. Preparedness: Zippers, layers and liquids. You want to spend all day stomping around your destination; you don’t want to get stuck running around, looking for an extra layer, or get laid up with a headache from too much sun/not enough liquids. Carry a day-trip sized backpack or tie a few extra layers around your waist: unless you’re traveling Korea in the summer, the temperature in these parts drops at night. A lot.

Read the full story

Author’s note: A hat tip to fellow travel blogger Legal Nomads for the idea, who originally got it from Katie on Tripbase.

Time to start a meme, perhaps? Or simply time to get people traveling some more? Take your pick – with the fall weather upon us, one of the best times to travel Korea is just around the corner.

My Top 3 Travel Secrets?

1. A weekend trip requires very little stuff. Leaving Friday night and getting back Sunday night? That’s two nights and two days – two pairs of underwear, two t-shirts, two pairs of socks. I can fit that in my Nikon camera bag and still have room for my DSLR camera and two extra lenses. Leaving early Saturday morning? ONE pair of underwear, ONE t-shirt, ONE pair of socks. You’re already wearing the rest – pair of jeans, jacket if necessary, etc. Add a small toiletry kit if you want.

2. Love motels are the best. Seriously – the name may be a turn-off, but the vast majority are clean, comfortable, and stocked with the necessities of cleaning up. Check this previous post for more on finding a cheap place to sleep. You’ll have no problem finding them – look for the neon signs near virtually any train station or bus terminal. The price is almost always right (less than 50,000 won – spend more than that and you get a big-screen TV, a jacuzzi in your room, some fancy pictures on the wall, etc.)

Jimjilbang (those day spas / saunas I wrote about before) are fine for you bare-bones backpackers, but sleeping on the floor – possibly in the buff – is not for everyone.

Read the full story

In case you didn’t know, we were recently in Toronto for three weeks for our summer vacation. Oh, how we missed Canada! Funny thing is, when we were in Canada, we missed Korea as well. We felt kinda homesick, in a reverse homesick kinda twisted way. Luckily for us, since we were in Toronto there were two different Koreatowns for us to visit to get our fix for Korean culture.

Read the full story