White Noise, Red Sun: Korea Highlights

White Noise, Red Sun

A little chunk of the web dedicated to keeping our friends, family, fans of Mike's noise and anyone else who for whatever reason cares updated on our year abroad in Ichinomiya, Hyogo, Japan.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Korea Highlights

COLLEEN:

Public art is everywhere! plus: when stopped to admire the glass-block sculpture, a Korean stopped and asked if we knew the significance of the piece. Pretty friendly of her to stop and talk to strangers. She was also bold enough to ask how where we're from, and how we are friends.... it's nice to see people be so direct.


What was this for? People used platforms like these in ancient Korea to study the stars.

Late-night crowds. I loved seeing people out so late into the evening. Makes wintertime more lively. Skating outside in downtown Seoul till 10 at night was definately a favorite.

Heated metal seats on the subway. Mike said they creeped him out, but I think metal seats seem so much cleaner than cloth. Add the heat, and they're perfect!

Sharing street food by the riverside. favorite street foods: Korean sushi rolls & fried stuff!


Especially the fried sweet potato (although there is plenty of this in Japan). Most disgusting ever street food (yet interesting): fried wormy looking things.


MIKE:


Insadon Gallery District. Although most the art didn't do much for me, it was nice to see this area of town. And of course I walked away with some things to contemplate. Favorite place here was the InsArt Complex (i think that was the name....) a five story building with a different gallery/show on each floor. One level had a nice portrait collection, another a really nice travelogue of China with nice photo captions like "when we go sightseeing, we are the sight they see." Very appropriate.

Namdaemun and Dondaemun Markets: bargains, bootlegs, bartering, BAPE.... i'm not one for much shopping, but something about the crazy marketplace atmosphere is absolutely magnetic.

The Royal Palace was nice, but considering we got ripped off on tickets (travel agent made us pay $20 in advance. tickets were $3) and had to go on a guided tour in Japanese, I'm a little salty. Other ceremonial things like the changing of the guard ceremony at the Sunglyemun ("The Gateway to Seoul") made up for that though:



And of course ice skating. And of course of course the food. Oh man. (Drools.)

posted by Shiflet @ 3:57 PM 2 comments  

2 Comments:

At 8:50 PM, Tricia said...

It's good to hear most of the trip was a good experience. It was nice to get a local to offer some background on sights. Some people take the time to do things like that and others don't. We have again this year "Skate on State" a large public ice rink on the State House lawn. It is on the west side this year, where Colleen used to do morning calistetics when she was in City Year. And the heated seats sound inviting in cold months, although we have had unseasonably warmer weather for Dec. Hope we don't end up with winter weather in the spring.
A co-worker who is originally from Korea did share with me one day Korean's dislike of the Japanese, due to Japan's treatment when they invaded Korea. So maybe the Japanese are charged more for tickets to begin with, and then the agent probably added a sur charge. One of the foibles of foreign travel is sometimes being over charged for things. It's good you were able to enjoy other things in spite of it.

 
At 8:52 PM, Anonymous said...

Must have hit the button twice can you delete one?

 

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