Was all about the snow and the cold. I went to sleep at about 10 the night before and slept as solidly as I have in years. Warm floor and cold air, I guess. Woke up at about 5:30 and did some work, then headed out into the snow at about 7. Got some pictures (below). Headed back in when Eddie and Jae awoke and called me. I don't think I mentioned it yesterday, but one really cool thing about Korea being so wired is that you can rent in-country cell phones at the airport for a few dollars a day. That's a good deal if you're likely to get lost, as I almost always am.
Eddie says that it snow in Seoul isn't really news, but to me it looked like it was the first time it had ever happened. Traffic was snarled, women were slipping and sliding all over the place (this may have had to do with the fact that they were all, unnacountably, wearing high-heels in a snow storm). At the train station they alternated putting down dirty rags and cardboard boxes at the top and bottom of each stairway or escalator. These were quickly soaked and dirtied by the crowds pouring over them and became useless. In some places men were melting ice with small, hand-held torches, but to do that they were kneeling directly in the way of oncoming commuters. It looked very disorganized to me.
Eddie explains this is just the Korean way of doing things.. pour people at the problem and overcome it ant-style. This approach became useful to us when the water main serving our house broke while I was out taking my walk, but was completely fixed within six hours. Eddie says this is the "fuck it principle." That is to say the Korean "fuck it principle" which goes "fuck it, we might as well fix this as quickly as we can." An unusual fuck it principle, but it worked for the water.
We walked out for a delicious breakfast of porridge (actually a rice stew, sort of) with meat and mushrooms. Kimchee of course and the ever-present cup of tea. We don't drink much else but alcohol, but the Korean diet is so rich in soups and other water-bearing dishes (a bowl containing nothing but two slices of horseradish and a cup of flavored water is the most hydrous example I can think of) that combined with the tea we spent half the day doing things and half the day looking for restrooms. Fortunately restrooms are everywhere in Seoul and are extremely clean.
After breakfast it was off to the Computer Bang so I could post yesterday's tripe and smell last night's cigarettes. Cheap though.. about a dollar for a bit less than an hour of intarweb this and that and the major bits of my work done. As we wandered around the slippery roads we contemplated forming a blues band called "Seoul Men" only because we had decided that there needed to be a Korean Blues album titled "Soju and Cigarettes."
Then it was off to two touristy destinations. The first was Unhyun-goong (goong means palace and Unyhun is the name of the mountain behind it. The second palace was the Changduk-gung. They were of two entirely different styles, and to make sure no one's download chokes I will post photos of the more ostentatious one today. I'll be going back to both when the POSSLQ gets here, so I'll post the other then.
A picture of Mr. Palace:
A detail of the Taancheong architectural style of ceiling painting. Used in temples and palaces only. If a local tried this they would be kilt:
A pattern detail from the Taancheong style of ceiling painting:
The King's fishing hole on a currently frozen lake. Not a biggish problem because he is a currently dead King and has little call to fish:
Walking along the palace fence we see someone fermenting something typically hideous and Korean (could be Kimchee, could be bean paste, could be some Hell I know knothing of:
I asked Eddie why the Taancheong style had been developed and and he said it protects people from demons and bad luck. I reminded him the king was dead and the palace had been repeatedly defiled by the Japanese, but he just cursed and repeated that it protected people from demons and bad luck. This is quickly becoming one of Eddie's stock answers when he doesn't just ignore me completely and pretend he can't speak English. Some of his others are:
"It doesn't matter, just taste it!"
"oh that? It's a Korean custom. You'll get used to it."
"Just one more bar and then we go home."
Now he runs them together, but he's added a new one. It used to go something like: "It doesn't matter, just taste it. It will help protect you from demons and bad luck. And it's a Korean custom. You'll get used to it."
Recently he added, "it probably won't kill you."
He added this after a night of revelry ended us up at the "Original Best Restaurant in Seoul." The other restaurants were merely imitators, I guess.
Anyway, one of our party members has a local secret admirer and we had to go out to the bar, karaoke, and dinner with him which ran til 2 in the morning and almost concluded with us unable to get a taxi back to our apartment. It also involved the most loathesome thing that I have yet eaten in Korea and, as in most funky countries, it was presented as a hangover cure. But that tail must await tomorrow as I am off to the PC Bang to send this little note off. Today we must bus south to meet Eddie's parents.
This can only end in tears! ;-)
Last pic is just one of the typical kind of jumbled signage you see hanging all over the place in Seoul. No zoning laws that I can make out around here. The pic also shows a bit of the snow we've had, though the massive amounts of traffic quickly destroy it as it lies on the street.
Now I'm off to try to pay for this time on the computer without a friendly (by which I mean English speaking) Korean in sight.
I'll write you all from prison....
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