It hasn’t been the easiest of years, and certainly not the best of triathlon seasons. A few weeks ago at Timberman I vowed not to do another race this year. Yet there’s a marathon at the end of the trip to Japan and South Korea. But before that there are days and days of discovery, and that does have me pretty excited. I’ve been to South Korea very, very briefly before, only a few days in Seoul. I fell in love with what I saw and always wanted to go back. I’m looking forward to being disoriented, to trying to figure out a new culture, see what people have in common across oceans and where they differ. Maybe by the end of those three weeks of exploring and wondering I'll be excited about the marathon. Maybe I'll get the Viktor Frankl part of me out, and I'll see the event less as a mere physical test and more about whether I can challenge my mind to overcome my body. Those sorts of challenges are always the tougher ones, the least pleasant you can experience, and even when you're done them you're not exactly smiling. But years later you see that they were the times you had to go into those darker corners of yourself that you wouldn't have otherwise explored. And that's real traveling.
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The flights are uneventful. It's just over twelve hours from Toronto to Tokyo and in that time the sun never goes down. We all sit captivated in our seats, watching movies and getting fed, just like infants in a crib. The only anxious part of the journey is the end when we're waiting for our bags. Waiting. And waiting. And that bloody baggage carousel goes around and around and people are picking up their bags and leaving until finally we're the only ones left standing. I hate this part of the trip. It's the time when your mind starts racing around making plans to deal with the scenario of not having bags for an unknown amount of time. Our bags are the last to come off the plane, but they're here. Off we go in search of the Keisei train to Tokyo, and we get a "random" check by the police. Yeah, real random. We're the only white people to be seen.
We get out at the Ueno Station and follow the fabulous directions to the hotel. One thing I've learned from travelling is that the most important thing to look for in accommodation after a long flight to a foreign country is location. You've got to be able to find your place quite literally with your eyes closed (because they will be after 12 hours in a plane) and unable to read any signs. Hence our choice of the Ueno Touganeya Hotel , which is a short walking distance from the station and even provides directions with photographs of landmarks. We find it without a problem. Check-in is mercifully short: show a credit card, sign my name and nationality, and 20 minutes later my sweetie and I are in bed.
We pore over the tourist brochure we grabbed at the hotel and figure out what we'll see today. The only thing that caught my eye in the brochure was the Tokyo Stock Exchange. After twelve years of reading The Economist, which always, always, always has a couple of articles about Japan and its economy, I've become hooked on economics and the mystery of the Japanese economy. As most people know, Japan's economy was to the world in the 1990s what China's is today: the Next Big Thing. Governments worried about Japanese acquisitions of American and other foreign property; there was talk of how the country would be the next superpower; every business, financial, and management guru made the trek to Japan to learn what the Japanese did to do everything so perfectly. The bubble burst in 1999, and since then Japan has been stuck in what's known as the Lost Decade: stagnation with no end in sight. The Tokyo Stock Exchange symbolizes all that, and I want to see the epicentre of one of the great modern economic puzzles.
First, though, we need to solve the puzzle of the Tokyo metro. After ten minutes in front of the giant boards in JR Ueno station, we plunk some money in the kiosks, push some buttons, and join the flood of people heading for the metro. We get out in what's obviously the financial district and make it over to the TSE. There are no tours; you just walk in and follow the arrows for the visitors' route. But it's fascinating and eerily subdued. The trading floor itself is mostly computers and a few young men slumped in chairs. The real economic mystery is most likely in the Japansese National Diet, the country's legislature, and the central bank. That's where odd financial decisions that have kept the country stuck in a rut are made. The most compelling explanation I ever read to describe what happened in Japan had nothing to do with economics and everything to do with culture. The Japanese have all the ingredients for rip-roaring economic success: fabulous education, amazing infrastructure, a history of brilliant science, innovation, and technology. Why, then, the failure? Because, as anyone who knows Japanese culture, one of the most important principles is "face", or honour. You must never act in such a way as to make another person lose face or be dishonoured, and there's nothing quite as dishonourable as telling someone that their company doesn't deserve another loan or should be put into bankruptcy. So bad companies - and bad loans - are propped up by the government and everyone suffers.
Japanese people are indeed unfailingly polite. Tokyo is crowded, but my sweetie and I are never so much as touched or bumped into by other people. People smile all the time. The financial district is probably the glummest part of the city that we see all day. After the TSE we wander over to a shrine that has no English explanations. People are donating money and ringing bells, so we do the same and later discover that we both made wishes for good childbirth. OK, back into the metro for the Imperial Palace, which is a bit of a letdown. You can't actually go anywhere near the palace, all you can do is wander around the outer gardens. They're the equivalent of Hyde or Central Park: popular with runners who are running the outer loop. And they're moving, too. No one is out for a light jog. This morning's army of black suits is now an army of white shirts marching around the palace gardens for their lunch hour walk. We wander more streets and stop for lunch, then decide to go to Askasusa, which is sort of the traditional area of Tokyo. In the huge Sensoji Temple there's an area where you put in a donation, then shake a round case in order to get a stick with a number on it. That number corresponds to a drawer in front of you that you open in order to pull out a sheet with your fortune on it. I get #82, Bad Fortune, and boy is it ever bad. Fire is going to burn right to heaven. My sweetie gets #89, The Best Fortune. This is really not my day when it comes to wishes and fortunes.
More wandering, now back to the Ueno area. We take all the small backstreets. They're the cleanest backstreets I've ever seen. Not a cigarette butt or tossed soda can to be found. After resting for a while at the hotel we go back out in search of an Internet cafe, and instead find a whole different Tokyo. It's dark now, definitely Friday night. The shopping area we stumble into is packed. We walk by gaming plazas - basically lower-level plazas full of pounding music and slot machines and men sitting in front of them. It's a sad and scary sight, the kind that turns us off from any more wandering.
Back down through the old city and into the flatter part known as Gion Corner. That corner is actually a theatre that has given its name to the neighbourhood, which is now mostly known for its traditional Japanese restaurants. I'd love to write about what one of those restaurants was like, but since some had price lists from $50 to $150 for a meal, my sweetie and I weren't in the mood for experimenting. Instead we just walked around all the streets and settled on some cheap tempura and beer. A bit of ice cream from a grocery store finished it all off.
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- It's early Sunday morning. Perfect for a run. Run along small street that follows a tiny canal. Lucky to have found something like this for running. Go to Imperial Palace. Feel even more lucky to have the opportunity to run on these grounds when they are devoid of tourists. Only early morning walkers are out. Run back to hostel along a main street.
- Great hostel in Kyoto: one of the best of its kind. Free wireless! Great view of the city and the mountainside from the outside stairwell.
- Shinkansen train to Hiroshima. This train is completely different from yesterday's. So new and clean that it still has that "new car" smell. Trip to Hiroshima is smooth, almost feels like we glided there soundlessly.
- Find the hostel without any problems, lunch back at the train station, then walk to reconstructed Hiroshima Castle. It contains a good museum that's useful in providing some history about the area. But highlight is seeing the two trees that survived the 1945 atomic blast. Who are we humans to think that we are stronger than nature?We have this strange idea that we are causing the Earth's climate to change. Isn't that a tad egotistical of us? The planet will survive us.
- Walk back. Very tired.
- Walk to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. As we walk along the busy and wide street it's easy to relate to the minutes before the bomb was dropped. Beautiful morning, walking along and going about your life when in a fraction of a second everything changes. No warning, no cause-and-effect.
- First see the A-Dome. The force of the destruction is well communicated.
- Walk into the park itself, which isn't all that well laid out. Feels cluttered, many memorial monuments, no real elegance to it. The actual memorial includes a flame that will be extinguished when the last nuclear weapon has been dismantled. I hope that never happens, because the only reason countries would do that is because they've disovered something worse, or the worst has happened.
- Museum is excellent, although parts are gruesome. I'm most moved by what happened in the days following the bombing. The day after the attack, whatever was left of the local government began to restore electrical power to the city, and within three days partial streetcar service was restored. There's a photo on the way out of the museum of a small cluster of daffodils blooming amid the rubble not far from the epicenter of the explosion, and only a few days old. We always underestimate the resilience of the human spirit - and the earth upon which it inhabits.
- Lunch in the museum's cafe; the museum doubles as anhigh end conference centre. We have an enormous white room to ourselves, much appreciated in crowded Japan.
- Stroll back through covered shopping area. The amount of shopping - and the prices - take our breath away. All of the most expensive designer shops in the world are here. Stop at Starbucks and see a purple coffee mug I've always wanted...$36.
- Walk back to hostel. It's an OK hostel but both my sweetie and I are covered with bug bites when we wake up each morning.
- Supper in a hole-in-the -wall Korean restaurant. Lots of fun cooking our own meat, which includes beef tongues, heart, and brisket. It's all actually very good.
- Covering a lot of ground today: one hour bullet train ride to the city of Fukuoka, city bus to the international ferry, ferry to Busan.
- Has been hard to find information about the ferry we want to take. New Camellia, a very large passenger boat that sails from Hakata to Busan daily, leaving at 12:30 (although today it left 15 minutes early, probably due to the strong headwinds).
- Shinkansen train arrives in Hiroshima and stops for a whole 45 seconds before leaving. Not one second is wasted in this country. The train ride is beautiful when we're not in tunnels. Lots of mountains and little villages. Once you arrive in the city of Fukuoka (its train station is called Hakata), follow signs to bus terminal, but when you get outside the train station, stop following the signs. The taxi stand should be in front of you. Cross the taxi stand and the main street and look for Bus Stand E. Take city bus 88 to the International Ferry Terminal. At the terminal, the ticket counter will be in front of you, but it only opens two hours before departure.
- The ferry is surreal. It's the cleanest, biggest ferry I've ever been on, and there are probably only about 20 people on board. We have entire lounges to ourselves. Entering the busy container port of Busan as the sun is setting is a great experience. Yeah, it's busy. So many ships being loaded simultaneously, the sound if huge metal machines clanging and echoing.
- Busan is coarser than the cities we've visited in Japan. It has more character and feels livelier. In the subway station someone immediately comes over to help us figure out the ticket machine.
- The adventure begins when we try to find the motel. I always find that the hardest part of any trip is the time just after you've arrived in a new place. You don't know how to adjust your frames of reference and don't know how to orient yourself. You may or may not have a map or directions. So of you're looking for the Hae Hotel, here are the directions from Yeonsandong subway station: in the station, follow signs for exit 1. Turn right almost immediately after the exit onto a small sidestreet. There's a Y intersection after about 40 metres of walking on the small sidestreet; at the split, stay to your right. There's a second uneven intersection after another 50 metres of walking: stay to the left. Continue another block and a half and the motel will be a white building on your right. You can't miss the huge Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem painted on the side.
- It's a love motel, so strange things like condoms in the rooms. But the rooms are incredible: huge, spotless, with a fridge and a water cooler that provides hot water as well.
- Enjoy cereal and nice breakfast in our room
- Subway to Beomeosa. City is completely different from the Friday night atmosphere we felt last night. People are now very subdued, not as crowded, we don't get as many stares.
- Take bus up to temple. Hill is very long, very steep. Recommend braving the crowded bus and taking it to the temple. Bus every 15min, 1000 won.
- Temple area is a nice break from all the dense urban landscapes of the past few days, but it's actually not that impressive, especially after the jaw-dropping, beautifully preserved Japanese temples.
- Our plan is to hike to the North Gate, then to the South Gate, an find the Seokbulsa Temple. Perfect day for hiking. But trails are not marked in English and we don't have a map. Hike steep rocky trail to North Gate, go down a gravel road and end up in a forgotten part of Busan, almost like a village. Lunch in a beautiful building. Full Korean experience, 21 dishes on the table. Lunch is well over an hour, sitting on the floor, view of the mountains
- Walk and eventually find South Gate, try to find Seokbulsa. Tkake cable car down. View on clear late afternoon of city: looks like a concrete infection squirming its way through the mountains. City is huge and growing fast, cranes and towering condo buildings.
- Subway back to hotel, see Lotte department store. Lotte is huge in SK. I realize that we simply cannot imagine worlds other than ours yet the same. In our world, sears is a large and important department store, so from there we generalise and say it is the only significant dept store. Book Elegance of the Hedgehog : we never question what our eyes tell us, we are shaped and limited by them.
- Supper at Mr Pizza, walk along crowded and throbbing street
- Lose my ticket in the subway, someone calls for help.
- Subway to Nopo-dong. Buy two tickets after we make a mistake and go through the wrong gates for the wrong direction. And this is an easy subway system.
- Bus station is adjacent to the subway station. Just follow the signs to Busan Central Bus Station. Ticket offices will be on your right. Line up for the kiosk labelled overhead by your destination. Go down one floor to bus platforms. Platform is indicated on your ticket. Bus is impressive: you get a reserved seat - No more fighting for seats - and bus is spotless and free from odour of days-old sandwiches. Seats are adjustable in every conceivable direction and you have lots of legroom.
- Find our way to hostel. Traditional place, friendly dogs. head out for lunch up main street. All sorts of designer stores, Pizza Hut, etc, but not really a place to eat a small lunch. End up in La Cuisine, fine dining, head waiter makes balloon figures for clients, including me. Order the most sublime coffee I've ever tasted.
- Train station to pick up brochures, then check in. Go to Tumuli Park to see burial mounds, then through park. Quite crowded, temperature drops quickly.
- Evening: make paper boxes. French couple whine endlessly about how they feel lime they're being treated like children but don't leave. Very much enjoy myself. Go back to room. Traditional room: sleep on floor, and floor is heated. Sliding doors.
- Sleep well in spite of hard surface. My sweetie is covered in bug bites and he's a bit cranky.
- Breakfast at the hostel. Make ourselves hardboiled eggs and toast, talk with Finnish translator who wants to know where to stop on central Canada if she ever takes the bus across the country.
- Leave hostel quite late and start with Gyeongju National Museum. Sun is so blinding that even sun glasses don't help. museum is very well done and helps us understand what we're seeing and what to appreciate when looking at temples.
- Take bus 11 from stop in front of museum along the main road. Bulgoksa is 8km away and the scenery is lovely. Makes me want to put on my running shoes. Sweetie jumps out of the bus too early and we end up walking 3km uphill to the base of the temple. Temple is with the walk. Last shrine at the very top has been restored. Koreans take a swipe at the Japanese every chance they get.
- The Buddhas in each shrine inspire in me a feeling of reverence; find it hard not to bow when I'm standing in front of them.
- Bus 12 from bus stand behind tourist info office down in main parking lot to Seokguram. Cab is 12000 won, too expensive. Bus ride along steep road gives a sweeping view and is worth it.
- Spend evening making Japanese knots and talking to French tourists, looking for places to stay in Daegu.
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- Short run when we wake up. Park is quiet and we run across to a road along a river, not what I expected. Turn back and take some of the paths that go through the flower gardens. The paths are so inviting and it's so peaceful I find it hard to end the run. 45min
- Walk to bus station, still unsure what our final destination will be for the day: Daegu or Haeinsa.
- Bus to Daegu. 50min. Get out at Dongdaegu Station. Bewildering area: another bus station across the street as well as a major train station I was not expecting. We are trying to find a motel recommended in one of the guide books in an area we know nothing about, that has no English. Go to train station via overhead covered walkway. Turn left when you enter the station and go to exit 6. Exit building and turn right to go to another pedestrian overpass, this one not covered. Cross the overpass and descend staircase on the right. Walk straight about 30 metres and turn left on very first small sidestreet you come to. Motel Milano will be the second door on your left, the one with no English characters whatsoever. Good thing guide a tourist info booth had written the name in Korean characters on a small piece of paper for us: we showed the paper to people on the street and it was finally an old lady who recognized the name and ordered another pedestrian to show us the way. Little old ladies: the traveller's best ally in any culture.
- Rooms are worn, not at all what the guide book said. I think they got motels confused. This hotel turned out to be the worst place I've ever seen.
- Over ramen noodles at the train station food court, we decide that we want to go to Apsan Park, which seems to be where most temples are located. Take the subway, which is one of the most sophisticated I've ever seen. I guess it would be after the terrible incident of 2002 for which Daegu is unfortunately known. Get out to catch bus 410 to Apsan Park, but it's my turn to pick the wrong bus stop today. Instead of a cable car up the mountain, we end up climbing a steep paved path. We see Ansila Temple about halfway up, and it alone is worth the hike. Sometimes the newly restored temples are more awe-inspiring than the older ones. Continue on right to the top of the mountain, glorious views of the city. Finally reach the summit and take cable car down, walk through Apsan Park and stop in a small temple. Has a huge stione standinb Buddha in its small courtyard. Really like this temple. Quiet strength.
- Laundry in the evening. Very much enjoyed the hike. That's what happens when you have no expectations.
- Horrible night in motel. Mosquitos, stench of raw sewage.
- Bus to Haeinsa. Dust on everything. Does the dust come from China and its incredible pollution? Combating dust requires a small army of old people sweeping every paved surface, creating even more clouds of dust. Now I understand why people wear masks. Our shoes are coated with dust after walking around cities. Asking myself the question " How do people get used to this?" just goes to show the cultural divide. If I had been born here as Helen Rooney, this would be normal.
- Take subway to Soebu bus station where we will take the bus to Haeinsa. Bus is full, and when we arrive in Haeinsa we see that most Korean families as well as hikers thought a Sunday in beautiful Haeinsa would be a good idea. We are high up near Mt Gaya. To say it's beautiful is such an understatement. Clear skies (rare in polluted Asia), fall colours. This is probably the single best day of the year to visit Haeinsa.
- The site is huge and requires a full day. Because of our late start we only see the main temple complex and one smaller one. Really wish we had had time to see the other temples and the huge stone Buddha in the side of the mountain. The hike to the Buddha looked very arduous.
- Lunch at one of the two open air kiosk areas trying out what everyone else seemed to be ordering: dough curled onto a stick and soaked in fish broth. One woman came up to us and gave us apple slices.
- Hiking must be the national sport in Korea. About half of the people we see today and have seen previously on trails look like they're at Mt Everest base camp. It might be 20 degrees and sunny, but every hiker has high-tech black Gore-Tex nylon shells for pants, the kind you'd pay a good $250 at Mountain Equipment Co-op in Canada, colourful Gore-Tex long sleeve tops (another $250, if not more), gloves (!) that match their jackets, and huge daypacks. Slackers have one walking stick; the more hard core hikers have two as well as a maniacal expression.
- Bus back to Daegu with a crazy driver who shaves 15 minutes off the 1hr20 minute trip. Feeling a bit sick to my stomach and thought of another night in our hotel room doesn't help. The outside periphery of the city seems to be where all waste and steel junk are Left. It's a bus trip through squalor, though I don't see anyone.
- Spend a few hours in the train station to avoid going back to the room. Plan trip to Jeonju tomorrow. Smell of raw sewage in our room is unreal when we go back. I get up in the middle of the night to light my scented travel candles and stay up until the nausea passes.
- Out of our hotel room three hours before the train leaves, even though the station is a two minute walk away and we could do it with our eyes closed. Besides, free Wi-Fi in the train station means there's lots for us to do. I can work on my web updates by emailing myself the notes I've been typing into my iPod each day. It's a good system; jot down notes or thoughts throughout the day or when I have time to kill, then email them to myself. Log on to server when I have an opportunity, and paste emails into HTML. Beats trying to find an Internet cafe full of cigarette smoke and teenagers every evening. Downside is that updates depend on finding a free wireless network we can log on to and stay for a sufficient amount of time.
- Very thick haze today. You can tell it's sunny outside, but the sky is a yellowish white or brown, and shapes in the distance are just outlines. Haze gets thicker as we travel west.
- Change trains and watch the scenery go from mountainous to completely flat as we head further west. Villages become tidier and less crowded. In Jeonju we take a cab from the train station to the express bus terminal, then find the tourist information office. They're nice and call the motel to ask for directions, but we're more or less on our own for finding the place in the warren of little streets behind the bus terminals. Find it, and go through the most belaboured check-in process ever to get a room. The hotel clerk is very nice but doesn't speak English. It's an effort and a half to ask him of we can see the room first, since he thinks we've come to visit some Americans already at the motel. It's another struggle to communicate that we want to stay two nights, not one night, not three nights.
- But the room is worth all of this. Huge, clean, and with all the, ah, necessities one would expect to find in a love motel, and some we had never heard or thought of. I seriously wish I had taken a photo of the vending machine just outside our door.
- At this point in the trip absolutely no one speaks English. Only English we see is at train stations to indicate the station name. Otherwise, you're really on your own. Tourist information offices are always staffed and have wonderful hours. Just don't expect more than a young smiling Korean girl who can't speak a word of English but can do a fine job handing you a map. - Walk toward the city centre on the evening and find a grocery store! A real grocery store! With an entire aisle of cereal boxes.
- Late start (again!) since we have gotten into the habit of enjoying a big breakfast in our room. Walk to hanok village and spot Starbucks with a bookstore next door that has English books, as well as free wireless. Heaven just when we needed it.
? - Start in the village with Gyeonggijun, where paintings and remains of Joseon emperors are stored. Very informative, especially after visiting Gyeongju, home of Silla dynasty. Joseon emperors vary from the completely inept who let their grandmother rule and the country slide into civil war to the far-sighted who developed the written language and reformed the civil service.
- Keep going through the village, eat lunch at Traditional Cultural Centre. Get to try out the bibimap for which Jeonju is famous. Incredibly good.
- More walking around the village. It's actually a bit frustrating since most places on the tourist map seem to infer that you're going to experience something, but most places have no English whatsoever; everything is (understandably) written in Korean. So while we know we're in a traditional paper place, all we can do is walk in to the courtyard, peak around, then leave.
- Lots about Catholicism in this part of the country, home of Korea's largest Catholic church as well as execution sites of first and most famous martyrs. Christianity always had a violent and uphill start in any new place, yet within a very short order of time is adopted as the primary religion throughout the land. Why is that? Why doesn't Judaism, with a history of even greater persecution, get the same happy outcome? And why don't we ever hear about Muslims being martyred? I suppos.
- Confucianism is also mentioned as a religion in some of the information we read. But wasn't Confucianism a social order rather than a religion? I think the rest of the world has a far broader definition - and expectation - of religion than we do in Western countries. Religion isn't simply a matter of worshipping and faith; it's a matter of defining social interaction. One doesn't therefore make religion a private affair, but instead expects to be treated in certain specific ways by everyone, inside or outside the place of worship.
- End up back at Starbucks for the free wi-fi and great atmosphere. It's almost empty, and when you figure that prices here are identical to those in North America. A grande vanilla latte is $4.85 in Canada, and $4.80 here in Korea. It's a bit too much for citizens in a country where the average annual income is less than half of Canada's.
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- No direct way of getting to Gongju from Jeonju. We check at the nearby express bus terminal just in case. The ticket agent suggests a bus to Daejeon, then another bus to Gongju. Sounds good to us; we had been planning to do something similar, going back to Daejeon by train, but her suggestion would save us some transfers in Daejeon. Daejeon has five bus terminals and tickets don't say which terminal you'll be arriving at. In our case, we're on an express bus - sort of like a privatized first class bus line - and these bus lines have their own terminals.
- In Daejeon we arrive at the express bus terminal and ask about buses to Gongju. A very nice ticket agent pulls out a little handwritten English note explaining that buses to Gongju leave from the other (intercity, not express) bus terminal, which is across the street and three minutes of walking. In South Korea, everything is three minutes of walking. Twenty minutes later we're on a bus to Gongju.
- Finding the hotel is easy, and that's not something that happens often! It's a hotel, not a love motel, but it still provides condoms. The novelty of condoms in the room has kind of worn off. In fact, after Jeonju, it seems pretty tame. Here in Gongju we're at the Hotel Kam Kung, near the main bus station. Go out the bus station's main entrance (follow signs to Taxi Stand), turn left and walk back past the bus yard. Keep about four small blocks. Just past a run-down garage or tire place on your left (it will look almost like a dump), turn left. Hotel should be on your right. Just don't bring your kids here; if you do, don't turn on the TV after 6pm.
- After settling in, we're out walking to the Gongju fortress called Gonsanseong. Only the wall of the fortress is from the original structure, but it's quite the wall. You can walk the 2.6km length right on the wall. Some parts are very steep. One short burst is so steep that our lungs are on fire near the top. But the group of young Japananse schoolchildren ahead of us are clambering up, even though it's 4:15 in the afternoon and any respectable North American kid would be crashed at home for at least an hour now and eating.
- This is a friendly part of the country. If we're standing on a sidewalk looking at our guide books, it doesn't take long for someone to walk up and ask if you need help. And a day of buses through peaceful countryside and cities would give you the impression that life here has always been bucolic. But it's easy to forget that, with the exception of the last decade, the last fifty years have been quite brutal in South Korea. Dictatorship, quasi-military rule, frequent and violent suppression of dissidents, and a horrible invasion by the North to start it all off. How did a country turn around so quickly? Why can't others do it? What was here that isn't found elsewhere?
- Great sleep. Koreans like their mattresses hard, and we're sleeping very well. Wake up feeling refreshed.
- Go for a run. Saw beautiful paved trails by the river yesterday as we crossed the bridge. Just had to try it out. Love starting the day like this. A few people walking around and even a few runners. Run up along a smaller river. Thick flower beds in full bloom on both sides of the trail, the whole trail to myself. Focus on relaxing and finding an easy short stride that will get me through the marathon.
- Turn back and run along the larger river. See a map for a whole network of trails in the city. Excited about this. Funny how we can see temples and be pleasantly amazed, but the promise of endless trials is what gets us runners truly excited.
- Leave our bags at the hotel. Late start again. More sights to see in Gongju today, then bus to Seoul. But first, coffee!
- Cab to museum (don't walk, it's a ways out). You can also take buses 1, 8, 25 from the inter-city bus terminal to the museum (#8) or to the tombs(1 and 25). The two sites are within ten minutes of walking distance between each other.
- Museum is new and beautiful and deserted. In the exhibition for the findings from the tomb of King Muryeong, display mentions exchanges between his empire (Baekje) and China. Doesn't ever country make this claim about exchanges, then boast the opposite in current times?
- Museum is impressive. Well laid out with lots of English panels providing very clear and chronological history of the Baekje empire, which was one of the three principal empires that existed in the Korean peninsula. But it is odd to see so much written about exchanges with other countries while in a country notorious for its inability to look beyond its borders.
- Walk to Songsan-ri Tombs, which include the Tomb of King Muryeon. Very picturesque.
- Bus 25 back to express bus terminal and off to Seoul on what smells and looks like a brand new bus. Bus ride begins with a small highway through mountains and ends on a ten lane highway through thick forests of tall condo towers. Welcome to Seoul, a massive buzzing 24 hour metropolis of 10 million people (20 million if you count greater Seoul).
- The hardest part of finding the youth hostel is figuring out the metro system. Not sure how to understand which directions the lines run. They don't seem to use end or terminal stations to indicate direction. Very nice man helps us in the metro station - this is Korea after all! - and good thing too or my sweetie and I would have broken up right there and then.
- Find the Bebop Hostel. Clean, cheap, room is tiny and not many washrooms for the number of people staying here. But breakfast is included and we can do laundry. Laundry situation is definitely dire.
- Do errands in the morning: laundry, mail postcards, pay for hostel. Hostel is OK. The kitchen has probably never been cleaned and it's pretty disgusting. But the staff are friendly and helpful. I'll sure be happy to sleep in a mosquito-free room when we're back home.
- Subway to the most well known of the palaces. The palace grounds are huge. First built in 14th century and destroyed and rebuilt and extended many times.
- King Sejong and early morning meetings. He used to hold daily morning meetings from 3am to 5am. Despite the heavy schedule, the king is said to never have missed a meeting. One day a minister told the king, "Your Majesty must be tired of attending a meeting every day. How about attending a meeting every other day?" The king replied, "If you come here to say such a thing, you need not come." I like this king; he understood what his role was.
- Brochure for palace is anti-Japanese to a shameful extent. Everything bad that has ever happened to the palace is linked to either the Japanese invasions of 1592 or the period of Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945.
- We found all the Americans. They never wander off the beaten path. They always congregate around the two or three most important tourist attractions in a country, and the shopping areas.
- After lunch watch tightrope walking performance, then rese tourof the palace. Walk to the far rear of the grounds and can here the powerful drum performance at the front. On a beautiful warm autumn day it makes for a unique atmosphere.
- My guide book says that at its peak, palace housed over 400 buildings. Korean palace hand-out often repeats phrase "burned down during Japanese invasions of the 1590s", but what the pamphlet doesn't say is that this doesn't mean the buildings were burned down by the Japanese; in fact, many fires set by Korean slaves angry at their work and living conditions.
- Watch a delightful performance of drumming and dancing on our way out, then walk through crowded streets of Insa-dong. Every major city has an area like this, crammed full of tourist shops and hordes of tourists. In spite of congestion people never shove.
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- Pick up race kit today. Four Americans and six Germans wake up at the same time as we do and battle begins for the hostel's two showers and one small stove. Escape the frenzy and take a long subway ride to Songnae station to pick up our race kits.
- Exit station. It has started raining. Not easy to find the hotel where race kits are being handed out. When we get there, we find ourselves in a small room with young people typing away on computers, surrounded by bananas and water bottles. This is not at all your typical race-kit-pick-up scenario if you're familiar with North American races, which are usually in huge arenas with a wall of kiosks and little old ladies handing out bags.
- Three young, very friendly men approach us and get our kits. One offers us his personal cellphone number, the other two pore over our map and hop on their computer to calculate our route from the hostel to the race site by metro tomorrow and the time it will take. I love Korea.
- Head back to a cafe for coffee and to look at maps again. Our next step is to take the metro to the race site to see exactly how things will be laid pit tomorrow. No surprises on race day!
- Afternoon is just some walking around huge and upscale-until-it-hurts department stores. $40 for two bars of soap! Amazing steamed dumplings and soba noodles at department store cafeteria. When it's not too spicy, Korean food is awfully good.
- Back at hostel early. DMZ tour is booked for Tuesday. Don't worry, Mom, tour is led by US soldier.
- Up early getting ready, then travel to race site. Almost an hour on the metro. At least we get seats. Listen to Everloving on my iPod. Didn't put a lot of thought into what song I would use for this race; it kind of came naturally. I needed a song that I knew kept me serious, focused, and calm. The marathon was going to take a lot of mental effort, more so than usual to compensate for the lack of training. I figured that getting through it would be a test of my experience more than anything.
- Start area is very well organized, far better than what you'd find at most North American races. Huge changing tents on one side - something I wish we'd see more often in races at home - then pick up a bag when you exit, put all your stuff in there, and walk across a square to check your bag. Very simple, very well laid out, and lots of room.
- After changing and checking my bag, I go looking for a toilet. I use washroom in Stadium itself rather than lining up with everyone in the cold. Wait ten minutes sitting on a heated toilet seat! Lucky me; this morning is freezing and I'm in shorts and t-shirt. Focus on my race, exactly how I want to feel in the first few kilometres, exactly what my pace will feel like and how my legs will turn over. Have broken race into four stages. First is kilometres one to 15, and my goal is to run as slowly as possible, relax, keep my strides short, not make any decisions. Stage two is 15 to 25, where I know stiffness will start setting in. It's during this time that I'll judge whether I can aim for faster than 4:30 or slower than 4:30. From 25 to 35 will be the hardest part of the race; my legs will be almost unbendable and the end will still seem far away. From 35 to 42 I'll know that the race is almost over and I'll be able to push through. Always hav a plan! Or at least an idea of how the race will unfold, its ups and downs, where and when these will happen, and how you'll address them.
- Start with my sweetie. Start is extremely well organized. In fact, everything about this race is extremely well organized. Highly recommend this race. Be warned: no porta-potties on the course (you are expected to use petrol station toilets) and Korean spectators don't clap. They are very supportive, but more vocal than physical.
- I'm very quiet during those first few kilometres. One of the best things about this race is how much room there is on the road. This is a big race -just over 11 000 runners - but the course is all on major roads. For most of the route we have three to five lanes. None of that frustration of North American races where large races use one lane, so that in the first ten kilometres you're stuck behind slower runners.
- I've got a pace band for three marathon times: 4:30, 4:40, and 4:50. My first kilometre is very slow, slower than I had anticipated, but I don't panic or react. I stay calm when all four 4:40 pace bunnies pass me. They feel too fast or faster than their pace should be. And indeed the distance between them and the 4:20 pace bunnies is decreasing.
- My sweetie leaves at 8km. He reminds me to listen to my body, which is always the best advice in races. It's more than listening to the strain of your body; it's understanding its strengths and when to surge, when to bide your time.
- Turn west around the 12km mark and start the long out-and-back. I'm surprised a how quickly the kilometres are passing. At 15km I'm not as stiff as I thought I'd be. See the race leaders. Three Kenyans together. So beautiful to watch them run! They're each leaning forward, knees and arms and head high, looking as if they're floating. Don't make a sound when they run. They just glide.
- Start getting chilly after the turn-around. Now going straight into a strong northwest wind. Legs are getting stiff. It's just past the 25km point and I'm in Stage 3, which I call the trough. Will be the hardest part of the race. But now for the first time in the race I'm passing more people than getting passed.
- Very windy in the km at the end of the out and back. Wish I had worn tights. Quadriceps cramp a little in the cold wind.
- Run 25k to 35k with Korean. At first I think he's shoving into my space and I'm a bit irritated, but after a while I see that he simply means to run with me. Almost forearm to forearm, we do ten kilometres together, over an hour of running. I enjoy the companionship and working with someone to keep a steady pace. Eventually I can feel my legs stiffening and I know I won't be able to keep up this speed without paying heavily later. With regret I let my pacer go ahead at an aid station. I really wish I could have seen him at the end of the race to thank him.
- One Korean man runs by around "Goo. Tech. Neek". Why, thank you.
- Hills are becoming more difficult. Around 37km I'm struggling and need to walk the tougher hills. This isn't a hilly course. Some climbs but they're all very long and gentle. A few sharper ones in the final kilometres that get to me, and I'm upset at myself for not having found that second win that will get me up them.
- Running into Olympic Stadium is thrilling. This is an awe inspiring building. Runners do three quarters of the track. I forget that this is where Ben Johnson ran his notorious 100m race for which he was later disqualified. Stands are empty but announcer is enthusiastic and wonderfully energetic. My watch shows 4:36:58 when I cross. Very happy: I'm in relatively poor shape, haven't done a long run since Timberman. Stayed focused throughout the race, made a good assessment of how the course would unfold.
- Feel pretty good after the race, all things considered. Change in the change room so that I don't get too stiff or cold. Long subway ride back. Celebrate at McDonald's near Hongik University.
- In the evening listen to German students staying at the hostel get ready for a night on the town by singing song after song, including polka songs. Decide to look for a new place tomorrow.
- Check out of hostel and go to new hotel we booked online last night. Hostel simply unendurable unless you're a university party animal. New hotel is Artnouveau City Hotel, right across from the Seoul Renaissance, in the swankiest part of town. Got a Sapphire Suite at almost half price. Feel like we're in Buckingham Palace. The view!! An imposing urban canyon, a cathedral, we're on the 14th floor and ceiling is 15 feet high, believe it or not. Same strategy as our trip to Egypt: tolerate the lower end places throughout most if the trip, then splurge on fancy digs at the end if you can get a good deal. And boy did we get a good deal.
- It's hard to be a tourist in Korea on Monday: everything is closed. Palaces, museums, art galleries. Go to Dongdaemun Market. Cold, bitterly cold. Pop out of the metro station, into the market, and surrounded by bedsheets. Eventually turn around and take metro to Mueongdong, walk up to cable car that goes up to Seoul Tower.
- At the top cable car landing on the walkway toward the tower there are very old beacon lights called Mongmyeoksan. Remember this from Lord of the Rings. Actually, a lot of ideas from Lord of the Rings show up in Korea. Silla kings buried in mounds, like son of King of Rohan.
- Seoul Tower markets itself as a place for couples. The fence around the exterior deck at the base of the tower is covered with thousands of locks and plastic hearts with inscriptions and dedications. My sweetie and I now have one there too.
- Elevator up to observatory. Gorgeous clear day, not a cloud in the sky. Walk around slowly. By the time we go down one floor to take the elevator back down, the sun is about to set. Decide to make the most of the situation. Buy coffee and dessert at the cafe, get a great table, and watch the sun set and the full moon rise. Can't believe our good luck. How many times does the combination of a clear day, a sun set, and a full moon rising occur in a city like this?
- Jane Jacobs: why are some cities successful and others not? What makes Seoul so special? - Go back up one floor after coffee. Many beautiful sights in my travels, but seeing the full moon in a clear sky over Seoul at night ranks among the most special. Sight of giant computer snowflakes and designs dancing and changing across two Lotte department store buildings, rivers of eight lanes of red and white traffic flowing through the core of the city, arteries of yellow and red lining both sides of the Han River.
- Meet a couple from Seattle in the elevator. My sweetie says he loves his trip, Koreans are so friendly. "Oh really?" replies the man, clearly not impressed. Doesn't like it here, "it's too different, not like the States." Uh, yeah, of course it's different! That's why you travel! If you want to see the same thing, stay at home.
- Up early this morning. Full moon flooding our room. Incredible. Traffic below, even at 4:30am. As Lonely Planet says, if New York is the city that never stops, then Seoul is the city that never sleeps. I love this city.
- Subway to USO camp where we check in for our tour. An American woman who walks with us to the camp tells us that there are only two USO tours a week, and the last one was sold out. My sweetie and I got the last two spots. I can't believe our luck these past few days: fabulous hotel, perfect once-in-a-lifetime evening at the Seoul Tower, last two spots on the most coveted tour in Seoul.
- Tour guide is Korean. Unfortunately most of us don't understand a word he says. I read the Lonely Planet section in the Korea guide about North Korea. It provides some of the statements about what we're going to see today from the opposing side. All of this is always about trying to understand the other side. Why do they believe what they believe? Why do we? Why are we both so convinced we're right?
- After a cold hour's drive, we arrive at the checkpoint area to enter the Demilitarized Zone. The guide reminds us that photographs are not permitted beyond this point. I tell my sweetie not to do anything that will start a war. "I learned that from living with you," he replies.
- The bus turns onto the Tongil Bridge and I catch a glimpse of the tour bus ahead of us lurching around anti-tank barriers scattered all over the empty four lane bridge. Strange sight.
- Arrive at Camp Bonifas where two American soldiers take over. We gather in a little auditorium for a short but very well done briefing: a quick summary of the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II that first divided the Korean peninsula; the surprise invasion of North Korea, supported by the Soviet Union, into the south in 1950; how the fighting eventually settled into an area along the 38th parallel; and how an armistice was finally drawn up in 1953. The sergeant then gives an outline of what's happened since then, as well as the layout of the area we're in.
- Back on to buses, now with the soldiers onboard. Drive to the Freedom House. Before we get off the bus, the sergeant tells us that we'll be forming two lines and walking into the Freedom House, and that any pointing toward North Korea or gesturing or stepping away from the group is not permitted. No photographs unless we're told it's OK, no stopping.
- Freedom House is South Korean side of the Joint Security Area. Walk through it to the Miltary Armistice Command building, divided in two. Has two Republic of Korea soldiers. Very intimidating. I get to stand in North Korea for a few minutes. Back outside onto steps of Freedom House. See two North Korean soldiers, one with binoculars checking us out. Tension in the area is very high.
- Lunch with couple at our table who are from Minnesota. They've been in Seoul for eleven days. They've found it hard to get around and are surprised at how little English is spoken. They aren't touching the small dishes that are served with lunch and don't use their chopsticks.
- While I'm standing outside the Observatory I tell one of the guides standing beside me how beautiful the mountains are on the North Korean side. He points out the deforestation on those closest to us; the North Koreans have cut down all the trees to use as fuel. Do you think this country has an energy problem? If they were planning on invading anything, where would they get the fuel for the planes and tanks and ships? How do they manufacture bullets? If they buy them from other countries, how do they pay?
- Visit Leeum Samsung Museum of Art. Building is quite extraordinary and we very much like the collection of older works. But the contemporary stuff is, well, contemporary.
- On the metro again to Gangnam, near hotel. When we exit the station and into the centre of a bustling, crowded sidewalk. It feels like a Friday night, not a Tuesday night. Find a Korean barbeque place on one of the side streets to spend our last evening in Korea. Waitress stops by once in a while to help us with all the dishes.
- Surrounded by kiosk after kiosk of food as we walk along small streets back to the hotel. South Korea will never go hungry. It's amazing how much food is for sale on city streets in Seoul. It's also amazing that 70 kilometres away, on the same land, people are starving. There's no difference in natural resources, ethnography, ancient history, or geography. Only a difference in ideology has resulted in this bizarre and tragic situation, and that difference boils down to freedom of speech. Single most important principle in determining a nation's - and a person's - success.
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Last updated on November 10 2009 by Helen Rooney
