A Confused and Silly Wander in Seoul 1/3

Uploaded On: Nov 16, 2011 11:42:25 AM While planning this trip, I maintained one stupid, stupid rule: be high. In my life, that's surprisingly (sadly) easy and inexpensive. Pretty much all of my friends smoke and give me free weed in exchange for... I'm not sure, but I get bunches of it. Normally, I'm pinioned by two strong feelings: that nothing at all is impossible, but nothing is really worth the effort of doing, and every minute that I waste further limits my options for the future. MJ does away altogether with most feelings, and makes the idea of doing things, any things, deeply satisfying. So I stayed high and thus excited, directly to and beyond the point of takeoff. I conceived the trip as an education, a testosterone shot to my abused language centers and my navigation skill. Of course, it is at the same time a test to prove to myself and to others that my survival isn't totally dependent on charity from friends and family. Beneath that, it's also an opportunity to plug into a culture shockingly unknown in the U.S. and to establish wider personal territory. And beneath that, Seoul provides a clean environment for me to fix a few drug problems I've developed. Lance drove me to SFO, and we smoked Sour Diesel from his minibong Li'l Cudi until the car was a fucking floating magic carpet. Eric came along, and picking him up put us in San Francisco at 9:47, one hour and thirteen minutes from my departure. Despite that, I sat at the gate for a minute before "all boarding groups" was called. The flight was terrible, like economy is supposed to be. If you need more detail, imagine sitting inside a neutron star made of fart gas. Korea is proud of ì¸ì²œ 국제공항 (Incheon International Airport), or so I gather from the fact that a very pretty government employee immediately approached me outside the security checkpoint to conduct a survey gauging my satisfaction with the facility. It's extremely clean, and they have a placard in each bathroom with the name and photograph of the janitor in charge of its maintenance. Presumably so you can insult him personally if you find a dirty toilet. The buses here are great, I was able to hop the 6020 (following the direction of some random helpful guy, a professional tourist-herder I guess?) straight into 서초 (Seocho) where I'm staying. The streets, and their layout, are bad. They're paved well and everything, but they're extremely narrow, and if you want to find anything, you absolutely have to have directions from a landmark. Everything in Seoul is divided into 구 (gu[s]), then ë™ (dong[s]), then very large city blocks, and then... random building clusters. If you get an address it's in the form of a block number and building number, but you're still fucked unless you know what part of the block your destination is. The building numbers appear to be in the order of construction. The blocks themselves remind me a little of massive single-story rooms, or maybe little open-air malls. There's usually four or more streets crossing through them, and the towers in most parts of the city are tall enough to produce an illusory ceiling. When I got off of the 6020, it was two stops past 시울겨대 (Seoul National University of Education) where I was supposed to go. The driver was somehow extremely polite and impatient, something I want to learn how to do while I'm here. I strapped on all my shit, forgot completely about my ukulele, and scraped my knee falling the fuck out of the bus into Seoul. I knew before I landed at Incheon that I would get lost at this point, it was practically planned. I was wearing blue jeans that are more open space than cotton, and I bled visibly from the fall. Everybody looked at me when I walked by, and as of Oct. 13th I have seen two other Europeans. My narcissist has never been so glutted. I walked around for five goddamn hours because in the instant before my PC could load my Airbnb (great service) messages from public wifi, the battery died. I didn't really understand yet how difficult it would be to spot my destination (Actually impossible, I was going off of weird/wrong information), so instead of going into the Coffee bean I was in front of, I packed off to explore. Seocho seems to be pretty safe, since I was in and out of alleys and apartment complexes until well after dark, and I still have my Won. Eventually I gave up and went into a Starbucks (yeah, so lame) to discover that Korean power outlets hate my laptop. My current converter handles loads of either 25 watts or less, or more than 25 watts. My laptop power adapter sucks between 0 and 70 watts, so the current is constantly being interrupted when power requirements are highest. (Later I figured out how to get it working, just switch to >25 during power-up.) Luckily, I brought a backup laptop in the form of my Benq S6, which only uses 20 watts. I had my directions off of that little bastard in only an hour and a half, among freezes, crashes and some really cute touchscreen malfunctions. Finally, I found my destination: a little restaurant called 김밥천국 (Sushi Heaven). I walked in and asked the cook "Hello, Mr. Jin-Woo Jang?" He wasn't, of course. The waiters know Jin-Woo though, and a tiny bit of english. One of them went to get him, and one stayed behind. I tried to explain what the fuck I was doing there, and he tried to explain that he understood and that I just needed to wait a minute. The apartments are next door to the restaurant and completely unlabeled. After Jin-Woo showed me around, I tried to take a shower, but I passed out instead. On the thirteenth I got a little worried about my knee scrape getting infected, so I stayed in and planned routes to a few places. Namely: ì‚¼ì„±ì„œìš¸ë³‘ì› (Samsung Seoul Hospital), Total Bike (A rental shop), and the Korean Tourist Organization. On the fourteenth it started raining. My leg had started to scab, so I decided to go to the KTO to try to find a map of the city. The Metro here is very slick, there's LCD screens that tell you your direction and bearing in three languages, and the trains are very fast. I got from the Southern Third of the city to the northern third in less than forty minutes. Unlike other Subways I've been on though, Seoul's doesn't try to save time by only giving you a few precious seconds to hop aboard. There's plenty of time to be polite getting on, the train itself is just ridiculous fast and smooth. I took line 3 from 서울겨대 (Seoul Nat. University of Education) to 종로3ê°€ (Jongno 3-ga), and made a wrong turn as I stepped out of the station. I walked north for about a half-mile before I realized it, and along the way I saw two palaces and the Seoul Museum of Technology. There were probably 100 buses lined up on that street. After I turned around I stopped at my first Korean restaurant. Do this: find a Korean restaurant in the states, and order the soup. If it's authentic, it will blow your mind. 8,000 ì› bought me three fish cutlets, a pile of cabbage with some kind of distilled joy on top of it, two kinds of amazing soup, rice, and kimchi. Unfortunately, it turns out kimchi is sort of gross. I somewhat gave up on the idea of finding the KTO, so I retraced my steps and went to Changgyeong Palace instead. Changgyeong was used by King Seongjong, the sixth Joseon king. The Joseon dynasty, which lasted until 1897, was founded and established Seoul as its capital in 13 fucking 92. Changgyeong was used as a secondary resicdence of the king, and was the home of the prince and the king's wife and concubines. Entry to the palace was a nominal 1000 ì›, which I would have gladly payed if only to stand in the entrance pavilion. Just the front gate of the place is striking. Done in spiny pagoda style, it's color scheme is immensely complex. A green and turquoise base is accented with ruby, and at the end of each roof-supporting strut is painted pink flowers with bright yellow centers. On the end of each protruding shingle is molded a rearing dragon. Beneath the roof is a decorative thicket of pillars constructed after the design of vertebra, with interlocking segments and jutting processes. Each protuberance is painted at least 7 colors that blend with the main greens and reds. The impression of the whole is that of huge box jellyfish. Through the gate, I was presented with a glorious, open courtyard. Everything about it, from the geometric perfection of it's shape to the rough texture of the granite flagstones, was resplendent with an aura of absolute power. It was maybe 150 meters square, but standing at the gate and looking at the distant throne chamber made it seem the entire world. I managed to get some panoramas from one corner that imaged most of it before my camera battery died. I'm going back, if Gyongbak (the oldest and largest palace) doesn't turn out to be more impressive. Up steep steps I found the world's most beautiful stoop, the general reception chamber for officials and others involved in the business of ruling. It has slatted windows instead of walls, and twin 500 year-old crane sculptures fly in an apparent circle over the throne, which is a wooden bench polished to a sharp, sanguine gleam. When I went back down onto the pavilion, I couldn't resist stamping the ground and yelling my loudest "HO!" like in kung-fu movies. (I was alone, and it was very quiet.) I wandered about the sleeping quarters of the king, his wife, and the fifth king's wife for a while until I ran into another palace, Changdeok. THis one cost 3000 ì›, and was swarmed with tourists. I'm not sure, because it's hard for me to tell them from Koreans, but I think Japanese people are kind of mean. A group of old ladies gave me the stinkiest eyes ever, and when I dropped my map a group of boys practically pointed while they laughed at me. The latter event seems somewhat natural, but it took me by surprise. I've been running into shit and dropping my belongings all over Seoul, and the most extreme reactions I've gotten yet are mild smiles and an older gentleman who made himself a human crowd-shield to make sure I didn't get stepped on picking up my notebook. The boys might have just been asshole Koreans, but I didn't recognize any Korean coming from them... Anyway, Changdeok is a sort of auxiliary to Gyeongbok, with residences for the king, wives etc. There's also a little office block-type compound. The brochure for the 5 palaces makes a really big deal about Changdeok's gardens, but also mentions quite slyly that their continued beauty is due mostly to "minimal human influence." They are closed to the public. While admiring the Changdeok's meeting hall, I talked to a man with a Grecian, or maybe Italian or French accent. "Fucking amazing, right? I've never seen anything like this in my whole life." He all but sniffed and said that it looked just like the other palaces on his tour. I wanted to smash his camcorder. I think he was referring to the colors, or the roof shape, because he couldn't be talking about the dozens of hand-painted landscapes on the courtroom ceiling, or the queen's audience chair inlaid with several pounds of abalone shell, or the canal that bisected the entire grounds, or the centuries-old underground plumbing. After a while, I decided to renew my search for the KTO in order to get that fucking Seoul map (I've been trying to buy one since I landed). Luckily, I found out that there's a shopping mall in 종로3ê°€ which has a large bookstore in it. Frustratingly, they didn't have any foldable maps, but I got a huge, laminated one that has all the Metro lines and most of the street names. I also got some Korean CDs: M.C. Sniper, and Yellow Monster. I have no idea how good his lyrics are, but Sniper cuts it up, and has good flow. Yellow Monster looks like a punk band, but I haven't opened it yet as of the 15th. Back at the apartment, Jin-Woo challenged my Korean by asking what I knew and where I learned it. I got nervous and totaly blew it, and all I could remember was what I'd been saying all day: "Annyeonghaseyo" (Hello) and "Kamsahamnida" (Thank you [very polite]). He suggested that I try speaking only Korean with him, which I suspect is half a ploy to get me to stop chattering at him like an English machine gun every time we talk, but I plan to take him up on his teaching advice. 저는 수ì¤ìŒ.