So far west, we're east again...

We're baaaaaaaaaaackkkkkkkk!!!

;)

Seoul Tower on Namsan

5 Apr 06

I've decided to photograph Namsan (Mt Nam in Seoul) as it changes from its winter 'leaf-less' view to its spring cover in cherry blossoms.

The first evening we were in town the Hwang-Sa were in full force! You could barely see anything around the city. The Hwang-Sa are the Yellow Winds from the Gobi Desert. These strong winds pick up the yellow dust and sands from the desert and sends them on their merry ways across Mongolia, China, Korea and the Pacific Ocean. It's sort of like smog but with a yellow-gritty undertone.

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We're here visiting Trekkie who has been defending freedom on this Peninsula for the past 2 years, 5 days & counting... In a bizarre, ironic twist of fate, while we were flying so far West we're East again to visit him, he was flying East, East, East he's West again--on business. So, for an entire week until he returns, we're visiting Trekkie without him.

He's visiting the banks of the Potomac instead.

Our first outing in country was a quick jaunt around the neighborhood. We headed out to Namdaemun. Since our last visit, they'd finished the renovation of Sungnyemun--East Gate--one of the four gates to the walled city of Seoul from back in the 1300s. One used to be able to drive around Namdaemun Gate as it served as the center of a traffic circle. At some point they decided to eliminate the traffic circle and add a plain of grass on one 'wedge' of the circle. They also opened up the gate to tourists and even capped off the experience by bringing out the Royal Guards to protect it.

Royal Guards

Yellow Dragon on the ceiling of Namdaemun Gate.

I love the vivid colors of the images painted on the historic structures around Korea. There always seems to be great inspiration for interesting letterboxes. ;)

After exploring the gate, we wandered around the outdoor markets of Namdaemun. I always seem to arrive in country without an additional change purse for the second currency I need in the area. So our first mission was to find a nice little change purse. We quickly solved that problem and then continued wandering around the markets. It's always neat to see how the wares change during the different seasons. This time the big 'push' was beach and surfing wear--including fancy bikini swim suits, beaded flip-flops and slinky spaghetti strap lycra shirts for both women & men (which was interesting?).

After we wandered around the market and satisfied our hunger with a roll of kimpab (Korean sushi similar to a California roll but with pineapple/turnip instead of the avocado) we worked our way over to Namsan (the mountain upon which Seoul Tower resides). The children really needed to burn off some post-cross Ocean flight and found just the right venue on this rope mountain climbing structure.

We spent a couple of hours here at the park. The older men of the area were playing Paduk on the bench. The same place they always seem to congregate in the park to play the Othello-like board game. I was quickly engrossed in the strategic aspects of the game while the children were having a blast playing on the various playground structures.

One of the interesting features in virtually every park in Seoul are these 'exercise' stations. This particular machine is designed to exercise your oblique abdominal muscles by standing on the disk, holding on to the bar in the front and twisting the trunk of your body back and forth. The children, on the other hand, found alternative uses for the machine. ;) RnrB seems to enjoy it as a sit & spin, instead.

A very bizarre thing happened while we were here at the park. We'd made friends with several of the people just hanging out. They were extremely interested in the 'odd' foreigners in the park and many of them attempted to carry on conversations with us. Of course we don't speak Korean and they don't speak English so it was a lot of hand and arm signals to communicate instead. Somehow, though, we got our points across and we enjoyed our time together. They were so very kind to us. Once offering me coffee, which was incredible, and then various snacks such as roasted sweet potatoes and what seemed to be a caramel sauce, Pringle chips, Coca Colas and ulimately boiled eggs dipped in sorghum! Yes, sorghum--green tea rice derived sorghum. That was a first!

Here's trkr tasting the boiled egg and sorghum for the first time. He appears rather giddy, doesn't he?

I guess I can compare it to French toast or perhaps egg-nog? ;)

Now, finally--something really bizarre happened while we were at the park. This homeless mentally-challenged and perhaps drunk individual had been roaming the area. At times, he would speak to the assembled men and they'd eventually give him money for a drink--just to 'scoot' him out of the area. He'd leave for a half hour and then return. This happened repeatedly. He'd rant and rave about something which I know not because I speak very little of this language. I kept hearing "saram, saram, saram, saram" as he was yelling. Saram, as far as I know, means person. I'm sure he added some colorful adjectives to his soliloquoy, though.

At one point, he came over to the man who'd given us so many nice little snacks throughout our stay. The 'crazy' man said something (I'm certain it was derogatory) and the man who'd been so nice to us stood up to defend whatever the crazy man threatened. Next thing we know, the crazy man decks the nice man with his elbow in some sort of tae kwon do move and the nice man was soon covered in blood. This unfolded all of about 3 feet away from us. I couldn't believe my eyes! The nice man took it all in stride. He easily could have responded by tackling the crazy man but instead he stepped away, rendered aid to his bloody face and then calmed down. Craziness! I'm so impatient, had it been me, I would have decked the crazy guy--but in an effort to avoid an international incident we sat idly by trying to render aid to the nice man instead. So, that was really odd. The crazy man wandered off and everything reverted back to normalcy. Odd--though! I'd never seen anything like that before in Korea. So, yet another weird chapter in our daily adventures.

Awhile later we returned back home through the markets and just had to stop for ice cream along the way. We spent another hour or so at a playground closer to home--the kids played on the play toys while I worked out on the stainless steel stairclimbers and elyptical trainers that are permanently mounted in all of the area parks. Hmmm.....something the US might consider installing in parks? Of course, it might run the 'pay for the gym' gyms that seem to be on every corner in the cities of the US out of business. It's a neat perk in the park, though.