The RowStein Compendium: November 2013

Mea Culpa. It's been bustling around here for the past month, so it's been hard to find a regular time for blogging. But, though our social calendars are filling up, classes and tests are winding down so you can (hopefully) look forward to regular posts over the next months.

When last I yapped at you Whitney had just finished up her culture festival and we were about to board a plane to South Korea. We take the high road here at The Rowstein Compendium, so rather than bombard you with our own bad Seoul-related puns we force you to do it yourself. That way any resultant loathing isn't directed at us . . . bullet successfully dodged.

While the experience is probably par for the course for our European friends, it is a bit surreal to take an international flight that has less than an hour of flight time. Unlike Europe, however, you still need to go through the whole customs ritual, and even though our disembarkation cards were given to us when we boarded the plane (since there is too little time to do so in the air), the process took more time than the flight itself.

Though a good catapult could probably land us in South Korea from where we are in Japan, the feel on the ground is surprisingly different. We had an amazing time shopping at the different markets, seeing different neighborhoods, and - as per usual - eating our way around the city of Seoul. But one of the more overarching features in the city is what remains of the fortress wall that once surrounded it, so I thought I would concentrate on that. Fear not, however: for those of you looking for a little food porn, or a boatload of pretty pictures, just scroll to the bottom of the entry ;).

The Seoul Fortress wall was built around 1397, both as a way of protecting and delineating Hanyang -what is now Seoul- by following the ridge-line of four local mini-mountains: Bugaksan, Namsan, Inwangsan, and Naksan. Given what the area has gone through in the intervening centuries it is unsurprising that the majority of the wall is long gone, and that the city has grown up to surround it.

Thank you to whatever Korean Tourism site originally posted this image :)

After our amazing experience with the Four Beasts Mountains in Taiwan, I was excited to look for some light, local hiking for our trip. It didn't take much digging to figure out that the fortress wall offered the perfect opportunity to do just that. Armed with succinct and simple-sounding directions from the always accurate interwebs we proceeded to make our way to . . . well . . . not the right place. But it was a palace we wanted to check out so we made the most of it.

Changgyeonggung and Changdeokgung Palaces

This is not the fortress wall ;)

The weather cleared up enough for us to see the fall colors in full force.

puuuurdy

N. Seoul Tower hiding in the smog.

A few hours later, and surprisingly close to where we started from we decided to grab a bite and regroup before attempting to find the the trailhead again.

A small Jjimdak (braised chicken awesomeness) restaurant

Every meal we ordered in a Korean restaurant was a table sized set meal including
at least 3 small sides (and of course kimchi)

Holy Moses was this delicious.

After a bit more digital reconnaissance, we decided to tackle the trail from the opposite end and start with Bugaksan, the mountain just behind the President's digs, called "the blue house".

Notice the barbed wire? Yeah, so in 1968 a group of North Korean commandos used this portion of the fortress wall in a (fortunately prevented) assassination attempt on the South Korean President. Ever since there has been tight security along the route, with all hikers signing out a permit / wearing a tag and a sentry every X-hundred yards, making sure you aren't up to something. Unfortunately this means picture taking is limited to selected areas. Between that and the heavy smog from China, which blanketed the city during our stay, the images we have fail to do it justice . . . but I'll bombard you with them anyway.

The ascent to the top of Bugaksan was effectively a nonstop
erratically sized stairway which took about 20 minutes. If I look
pleased with myself it has less to do with the ascent, and more to do
with putting some distance between myself and WR's malevolent gaze.

One of the many guard towers. You can also see the differences in the stone used
during the different eras of wall construction.

Yatta!

Sukjeongmun Gate midway along the hike

WR also got some quality interaction with locals, including a 7 year old boy professing his hatred for Japan, and a very kind older woman who stepped away from lunch with her friend to put a grapefruit sized hunk of what can only be described as the bastard offspring of trailmix and sticky rice into a bewildered WR's hand. In other words, it was pretty fantastic.

In addition to the gates we saw on our hike, we bumped into several more of them over the course of our explorations.

Though you can't tell from this image, this gate and wall section are smack in the middle
of a shopping district. Surreal no?

Namdaemun Gate from the edge of
Namdaemun Market

Sorry again for the epic delay on this entry, but we will be back again by the end of the coming week with recap of all the crazy awesome things which have happened in the last 4 weeks. For now I'm off to enjoy the four weeks I have remaining here in Japan.

Thanks as always for reading, and don't forget to feed the fish!

DW.

Food.

We got in late at night and hit a convenience store for a few
snacks. After I tried it WR asked "How is it? Spicy? Sweet?
Salty?", after pausing I answered "Yes . . . in that order"