Go Reds! Figh--ting!!!

21 May 06

Seoul, Korea

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An Assortment of Stuff culminating with...

Korea's bid for World Cup Football Success!...

Morning...

So this is what hair looks like after being in Bo Derek '10' braids for 2 weeks...

It took Trekkie & me over an hour to remove all of the braids. That's longer than it took the ladies in Phuket to braid it in the first place!

Afternoon

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Attempt at the LX6 Geocache at Catholic University in Seoul.

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Hopped the subway yet again for a 20 mile ride out to Catholic University in the west part of Seoul. Meandered the couple miles to campus and eventually homed in on the cache--yet another DigitalFudge classic! This kid (DigitalFudge) is a university student from South Africa who is currently attending one of the universities here in Seoul. He hasn't found a geocache that anybody knows about but boy has he certainly hidden several very interesting ones--and not just in Seoul. He's got them hidden all around Asia--including the Galapagos Islands when he was there on a 'cruise' with Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior. The only reason I keep highlighting his caches is because the containers are just downright ingenious--and they're all handmade by this guy (unlike many of the unique geocache containers you can purchase on Ebay)!

Here's LX6 in all it's glory!

It's a simple wooden framed box to which he glued real bark.

From a distance it looked almost like it blended in--but after having letterboxed and geocached for many years I could tell instantly what it was. The interesting thing was that his clue said that if you look for it at night it will glow slightly blue. That 'blue' would be the little 'antenna' he added to the lid which seemed to me to be a handle by which to lift the container. I'm wondering--are there that many folks who actually go geocaching at night???

Peek-a-boo! The little blue hint you see under the slightly lifted container is the geocache.

trkr & rnrB enjoying some time on the subway. They kept getting excited when they'd see the 'bullet trains' speed past us.

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22 May 06

Seoul, Korea

Rain

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Seoul Tower hiding behind mist.

After several weeks of thick Yellow Dust lingering in the air, it finally rained in Seoul again. It rained and rained and rained and rained! Exactly what this city needed. We could finally breathe in deeply again as the air was purged of the dust for a few hours after the rains. An awesome feeling!

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23 May 06

Seoul, Korea

A Long Spontaneous Walkabout

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Once rnrB finished her studies today we headed out just to walk--no goal, just head where ever we were led. So we wandered. We had a few missions to purchase some items that friends back home had asked us to purchase while in Korea--a large drum and a fridge magnet. So we stepped out the apartment and just headed north--toward Namdaemun Market with a hope to possibly reach Insadong by foot (a long walk--but something we really needed after an entire day cooped up inside due to the heavy rains yesterday).

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So, we wander through Namdaemun Market and don't really find what we're looking for. We do see some drums but they're priced between $50-$300 and I'm thinking those are 'tourist' quotes--so we ignore them. We continue along, reach the northern edge of Namdaemun and just pick a main street to follow in anticipation of reaching Insadong (Artist Alley that I love to explore when in Seoul). Along the way, we see lots of red Korean National Football Team t-shirts for sale. So we can sense there's excitement in the air. We soon stumble on this canal area that's lined with gorgeous petunias and geraniums and just have to descend the steps to explore the area. What's odd is that we've walked this area many times before over the past several years and we've never seen this canal before. Huh? How does a 6 mile long canal just pop up in a major city???

Turns out that this is Cheong Gye Cheon Stream that has recently been restored to its former grandeur. It's a stream that years ago flowed from west to east in the city (1392-1910) . This stream was where the housewives around the city would gather to wash laundry while the children would play around the area. 1910 was the year the Japanese Empire overtook Korea and living conditions throughout the country worsened drastically for the Koreans. Thousands of Koreans who lived in rural areas migrated to Seoul in hopes of improving their living conditions but many ended up building shanty-homes along the banks of the stream and life seemed to worsen for them--especially in light of the strife they endured during the Korean War (1950-1953). In time the stream became increasingly rundown and eventually was buried by an elevated highway and neighboring high-rise buildings.

However, all of that changed about 10 years ago. Seoul realized that it needed many more greenspaces for its citizens and decided that restoring this stream would help provide some of that desperately needed park space. In 2003, they began the massive restoration project (little did we know at the time, we just thought it was major repair work on the highway that was occuring under massive slabs of steel) and in September 2005 they opened the restored canal for all the city to enjoy.

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Besides removing and rerouting the major double-decker highway that occupied the area, they also had to remove the decades of debris that remained in the area, and restore the waterway itself which is a seasonal stream. In the dry season, it's bone dry--so to increase the park's year-round appeal they developed this really intricate system that pumps water out of the Han River (the large one that meanders around Seoul), cleans it, transports it to the dry stream bed, and then routed the water along the historical stream route back to the Han River on the other side of town. From what it appears, this was one major project and the results are absolutely beautiful!

They incorporated a lot of unique public art in the area surrounding the canal, too. One of the walls has this impressive tile mosaic that depicts a Royal Procession--including an immense array of all the nobility, their accompanying military and security guards, their relatives, palanquins--you name it. It stretches out over 500 meters!

Here's one of the palanquins. The mural is about 10' tall so it's rather impressive!

Here's an interesting area where they incorporated a neat waterfall on one of the sides of the walls that sends water underneath the sidewalk and then over large boulders where it drops down into the canal. Very soothing! Definitely a nice respite from the heat in a large city like Seoul.

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We enjoyed the canal and then continued our trek to Insadong. This time, I finally remembered to snap some photos in the quaint art stores in town.

Here trkr points out many of the traditional boars' hair paintbrushes that the artists use for many crafts--ranging from calligraphy to painting and even traditional wooden box crafts.

rnrB shows off the large array of handmade papers available at the art store. These range from rice paper to wood paper to paper impregnated with flower petals, fibers, you name it.

trkr hanging out among the traditional wood boxes and rice paper lanterns section of the art store. Every nook and cranny in the store was so beautiful and after having lived in or visited the country as often as I have I always forget to snap photos of the area to remind us of its beauty after we return home.

We returned to the 'noodle' restaurant again--this time rnrB & trkr insisted on watching the 'noodle man' make at least 3 iterations of the rice flour noodles (in that pizza crust twirling idea of demonstrating the noodle stretching craft to the passersby). Here I snap a photo of the kids from within the restaurant, the kids' noses are smashed up against the window, the chunk of noodle dough is sitting atop the butcher block just waiting to be kneaded and the 'noodle man' is stooped down below the counter washing the gluten off his hands from the previous batch of noodles.

Here is the dish of noodles we ordered from the 'noodle man'. They were served, boiled, in a thick sauce of soybean paste with caramelized onions and garlic. We also ordered a dish of beef mandoo (dumplings) and then it was all accompanied with the usual kimchi dishes and a little dish of hoisin sauce. The hoisin sauce was the key--it helped cut the sweetness of the soybean sauce. Very tasty--although it doesn't look all that appealing in this shot. I sold it to the kids as 'chocolate noodles' and they bought it (yes, gullable) but the key is that they enjoyed it, too. ;)

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After the noodle shop, we explored several antique stores--found a few items we just might not be able to leave Korea without purchasing (although we didn't make any purchases this afternoon). Then, we retraced our steps a bit and returned to the canal. We wandered in the direction of blaring music--having no idea what was causing the heightened level of excitement in Seoul.

The canal later in the evening--you can see the beautiful flowers lining the upper edges of the canal area.

rnrB enjoyed jumping between the stepping stones in the canal. The water was about 3' deep in the canal around these stones.

Here's one of the original supports for one of the original bridges that spanned the stream back before the Japanese Occupation. Fortunately, they were able to salvage several of these ornate blocks during the restoration project.

The fountain-head where the water is initially pumped from the Han River, cleaned and then circulated into the canal. This fountain serves as the headwaters for the canal. It includes the random waterfountain in the upper level, several small cascades and then one large 20' drop of a cascade into the main canal. I'm sure after dark this includes a nice light show, too--as Korea has really been a front-runner in the fiber-optic lighting world. We may just have to revisit this after the sun sets some day before we leave.

This was neat--the area behind the fountain in the previous photo includes a mosaic tiled sidewalk area with a couple 'snakes' of flowing water that lead to the fountain. Every so often there were really ornate tiles or blocks of brass with writing or ornamentation imbedded into the walkway. Very beautiful area!

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The commotion in this area, however, is what attracted us in the first place. There were giant video screens all around the streets airing what appeared to be rock concerts from somewhere else in town. The music was blaring out of speakers all around the city. Folks were dancing in the streets and everybody was wearing red t-shirts, or red bandanas or red devil horn headbands. Even the riot control busloads of police were standing by just 'in case'.

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At one point along the way, folks handed us these long ribbon streamers and asked us to write something on them to give to the Korean World Cup Football Team. So we obliged--especially considering that our own country's team didn't even qualify for World Cup this go 'round. So, I guess we have a team to root for now--although I'm usually partial to Germany just because I have a few friends who play professional soccer in the Bundesliga. Regardless, the Koreans loved how excited we got about their 'Red Devil Tigers'! We ended up leaving with ribbons of our own, a Polaroid shot of all of us with a superimposed image of the Korean Football team logo on it, and temporary Korean Reds tattoos. This whole collection would go well with the 4 sets of 'Go Reds' t-shirts we'd already received from one of Trekkie's coworkers--so we're all set for World Cup this season!!!

Here rnrB & trkr display the 'Go Reds' streamers on one of the many stands of 'good luck' streamers posted around the city. We added our streamers to this particular stand.

trkr showing off his Go Reds 'ninja bandana' that he referred to as a red light saber (I don't quite get the connection, but hey--he's 4).

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All of this excitement about World Cup reminds me of a few things. My first World Cup experience was in the summer of 1982 when I resided in Germany. I was on a swimming trip to Mallorca, Spain, for a week during that World Cup--when it was being held in Barcelona and Madrid. The excitement in Spain at the time was just as crazy as here in Korea! World Cup was on their currency, on their Coke bottles, every storefront in town, vehicles, banners--faces, shaved into heads of hair--literally EVERYWHERE!!! Same thing here in Korea!

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Another thing this reminded me of was when I competed in a triathlon in Ich'on, Korea, back in Sept 1997 (during my 'athletic' era in life). I was one of about a couple dozen women competing in the Olympic distance event and was holding my ground with the men (at least for the swimming portion of it as that was my specialty). As I transitioned to the bike and the running events, hundreds of Koreans lined the streets to cheer us along (it was a 3-hour event) and as a woman and especially a foreign 'odd-looking' woman I attracted a lot of attention. I'd only lived in Korea for about 6 weeks at that time and didn't speak a lick of the language. When the Koreans were cheering us on they'd yell "Figh-ting, Figh-ting!". It certainly sounded like they were saying the word 'fighting'--and I had no idea why when they used it in such a way to encourage somebody along and not to 'oppose' them like I'd assume the word would be used! I asked as many Korean friends after that event why they used that particular word and they just said that that's how they root for their teams. So, when in Rome...

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As we walked the few miles remaining back to the apartment we then realized what all the excitement was about. Korea was playing their first match in the 2006 World Cup in Germany--right now!!! We could tell that because most of the stores around the city (that are usually open well past 9pm) were all closed. The ones that were still open had televisions blaring with the game in progress. As with Europe, World Cup Football is a national holiday around here.

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Go Reds! Fighting!!!