I'm sitting here in my room at the Royal Windsor in Brussels, waiting for my body to forgive it whatever terrible wrongs it feels I've done it (I think it is like the Printer from this comic gem), and watching the Antwerp Gymnastics Expo.
Is it just me, or are gymnastics commentators kind of dicks? Because they seem like dicks.
DO YOU SEE WHAT THAT PERSON IS DOING WITH HIS BODY?! IT IS AMAZING! I CAN'T EVEN DO THAT RIGHT SIDE UP!
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, "OOH, WHAT A SHAME"?! SHUT YOUR FACE, NEGATIVE NANCY.
Friday, 4 October 2013
Reconnec-
In 2010, I joined a choir, the Camarata Music Company, one of the single best decisions I've ever made. It gave me a home, socially and musically, and it was tons of fun! When planning this trip, I found out they were having a concert while I was going to be in town, and I got Ryan, the director, to hold a ticket for me. As the choir rehearsed in Haebangchon, it's an area I got to know really well when I was singing with them, and I found it fitting to revisit with TJ the day of the concert.
The first order of the day was a burger at Jacoby's. I was hoping that my favorite restaurant, whose name I forget because it was a while ago and I never needed to know its name, it was just That Place I Go When I Want To Eat Good Food in HBC, would still be open. Sadly, it was under a new name, which threw me enough to say I didn't want to gamble on it. So to Jacoby's we went! I'm sorry my head isn't in this picture for scale, but trust me when I tell you that that burger is roughly 0.9 Rebecca-heads in volume. It's big. It's covered with guacamole and cheese, has a piece of bacon that isn't totally flaccid (a victory in Korea) and had this nice grilled pineapple ring, too. Delectable. TJ reports his was good too. I couldn't hear him over how delicious my burger was.
How do you get to this mecca of burgerdom, you ask? Well, I realized it might be good to have photos of that after we'd eaten and were heading back to the metro, so all these pictures are in a weird order and often in strange directions. Here is what you see walking up toward the restaurant bits of HBC. It's not a terrible hill, but it was a hot day, and it could have been considerably more pleasant. September in Korea is not yet jeans-wearing weather. Learn from my mistakes.
How do you know when to turn off the enormous road onto HBC hill? By the kimchi pots, of course! So here we are, one landmark closer to the metro, the place where the road in the above picture splits from the massive road on which the metro stop is located. These are the big ceramic urns in which kimchi is fermented over the winter months. This is a store that sells them, not a depot where people store them when not in use. That said, there is no discernable change in the inventory since I was last here. I know, I'm a pottist. They all look the same to me.
At first glance, the escalator down into Noksapyeong station looks like any other. A normal tube station, you think, just under the road.
Then you go down further, another escalator.
And another.
Remember when you were up there? Yeah, me neither.
Remember what the sun looks like? It gets a little THX1138 down here...
It's deep, is what I'm saying. Anyway, it was here that TJ and I parted ways, him to go to Dragon Hill in Yongsan, and me to go over to City Hall station, eventually, for the concert. I thought I might stop at Seoul Station for a change of clothes, as I'd sweated through mine and didn't want to see old friends at something so far from my best.
Here is a common sight: an ajumma (old lady) selling small animals in the subway. This was my first time seeing bunnies, and it was totally worth her yelling at me in Korean for taking pictures to capture this for you. Validate my sacrifice.
Ahh, Seoul Station. More geodesic domes! Sign of the temple of Lotte! Lotte is a huge name in Korea, from burgers to designer fashion outlets.
Sadly, the gamble on clothes did not pay off. I was stuck in my sticky clothes, and decided friends would just have to remember my better aspects and love me anyway.
Back into the subway I went, to get over to City Hall station, close to where the concert would be held, so I could attend the dress rehearsal and visit a couple of favorite things over there.
This is a picture of a vending machine that would never be successful in the states. When exporting the drink, they re-brand it "Calpis," which oddly, doesn't help much.
When I got out at City Hall, I saw a whole barricade bit up right in my way, which was not cool, yo. As I got closer, I realized it wasn't blocking my progress altogether, but there was something Interesting going on.
It was the changing of the guard at this palace, Dae.....something....Moon. I actually went there in 2010, to tour the grounds, which are like a living museum, and very lovely. I had no idea there was a guard, or that it changed. I saw something like this in Gwanghwamun, which is not far from this spot, but didn't know about the palace guard, especially as it's not an active palace. No royalty live there at the moment, to my knowledge.
Across from the palace gate is a Dunkin Donuts. Why would I take a photo in there? Because DD in Korea is hard core. This is a photo of my favorite thing that they do: choux. They will sell you a little box (on the bottom) of choux pastries, and give you pastry cream to apply to them as liberally as you like (well, almost. They like to keep the ratios equal, so it can be hard to persuade them to give you two cream portions per box o' choux. Mmmmmm, choux.
Do not adjust your monitor, that's what the photo looks like, because that's what the sculpture looks like! It's called "Kimchi Pots," and it's a sculpture of a family. Who have all been shrunk only in the Y dimension. The tallest person in there is about 3.5 feet tall, and it's super trippy to look at in person. This sculpture is down the street from DD, the wall behind it is the back wall of the palace complex whose gate is just by DD. It's also right by the intersection close to the church where the choir was performing.
Between rehearsal and performance, I was able to have dinner with Jayleen, who is getting married to her Korean fiancé in 2014! Very exciting news among the other catching-up news that you get when you meet up with an old friend. She took me to a cute little place I'd not been to in the neighborhood, which was also a knitting enthusiasts' shop. It Dr. Seuss trees and tonkasu, which means it was awesome :)
And then it was time for Jayleen to go sing, and me to go listen. Christine, who came to the choir in the time since I left, and deals beautifully with all its financial needs - and boy have they come a long way! I joined in the choir's second season of existing, and now they have super cool fundraisers at fancy places where they can raffle off tickets from the US to Korea! - gave me her musical score, as she was not going to sing with the group, but be doing admin stuff for the show. She is a sweetie, and I am very grateful.
Here is a picture of my favorite song the choir sang, "Give Me a Choral Medley," and if you or anyone you know/love is involved with a choir and has been for a while, they will be barely able to contain their glee at it, as I was.
I realized way too late that I didn't take any pictures of the choir all together, but if you want to see some, go check them out on Facebook, or at their own website. This photo is of Andreas, the master pianist, and his partner in crime for this concert. They played "Rhapsody in Blue," one of my favorite pieces, and it was terrific! The whole concert was a blast, and I'm so glad the timing worked out that I could attend. It was great to be back.
It's deep, is what I'm saying. Anyway, it was here that TJ and I parted ways, him to go to Dragon Hill in Yongsan, and me to go over to City Hall station, eventually, for the concert. I thought I might stop at Seoul Station for a change of clothes, as I'd sweated through mine and didn't want to see old friends at something so far from my best.
Sadly, the gamble on clothes did not pay off. I was stuck in my sticky clothes, and decided friends would just have to remember my better aspects and love me anyway.
Back into the subway I went, to get over to City Hall station, close to where the concert would be held, so I could attend the dress rehearsal and visit a couple of favorite things over there.
When I got out at City Hall, I saw a whole barricade bit up right in my way, which was not cool, yo. As I got closer, I realized it wasn't blocking my progress altogether, but there was something Interesting going on.
It was the changing of the guard at this palace, Dae.....something....Moon. I actually went there in 2010, to tour the grounds, which are like a living museum, and very lovely. I had no idea there was a guard, or that it changed. I saw something like this in Gwanghwamun, which is not far from this spot, but didn't know about the palace guard, especially as it's not an active palace. No royalty live there at the moment, to my knowledge.
Between rehearsal and performance, I was able to have dinner with Jayleen, who is getting married to her Korean fiancé in 2014! Very exciting news among the other catching-up news that you get when you meet up with an old friend. She took me to a cute little place I'd not been to in the neighborhood, which was also a knitting enthusiasts' shop. It Dr. Seuss trees and tonkasu, which means it was awesome :)
And then it was time for Jayleen to go sing, and me to go listen. Christine, who came to the choir in the time since I left, and deals beautifully with all its financial needs - and boy have they come a long way! I joined in the choir's second season of existing, and now they have super cool fundraisers at fancy places where they can raffle off tickets from the US to Korea! - gave me her musical score, as she was not going to sing with the group, but be doing admin stuff for the show. She is a sweetie, and I am very grateful.
Here is a picture of my favorite song the choir sang, "Give Me a Choral Medley," and if you or anyone you know/love is involved with a choir and has been for a while, they will be barely able to contain their glee at it, as I was.
I realized way too late that I didn't take any pictures of the choir all together, but if you want to see some, go check them out on Facebook, or at their own website. This photo is of Andreas, the master pianist, and his partner in crime for this concert. They played "Rhapsody in Blue," one of my favorite pieces, and it was terrific! The whole concert was a blast, and I'm so glad the timing worked out that I could attend. It was great to be back.
Caffeina-
Korea has a lot of coffee shops. You Manhattanites reading may scoff and say, "That's cute," but I tell you, you got NOTHING on Korea. Delightfully, it is not just the wild prevalence of Starbucks that entitles Korea to the title of Coffee Empire, but the popularity of little independent shops, many of them really interesting. Here is one near our hotel I noticed because of its awning, which reminded me of the Orange Gate installation in Central Park (no relation, it turns out). Then I noticed the name, which was great, because this might be as far from Connecticut as it gets (also no relation).
It was either going to be a tunnel to coffee wonderland, or a horrible gaping maw that would close on us when we got to the far end. Only one way to find out!
And a tunnel to Wonderland it was! Beautiful natural light poured in over small trees (all real), hung with necklaces of felt stones. Why? Because they could! It was very charming, and sold chocolate chip cookies with entire 1/2 oz. squares of chocolate as chips! I could live here.
And on the way out, they wish you a nice, orange day. As testament to my first paragraph, please note that they are directly across the street from a different café, which we also frequented!
Here's a close-up of the 2nd breakfast I had from the post about Insadong: blueberry panna cotta and latte. Good job, Four M! Way to shake off the shackles of expectation!
A spot we ate at several times, and found out later our client loves, too (because it reminds her of her Belgian homeland's coffee spots), was Le Alaska.
Why is it called that? Who can say? Why French and Alaskan? Who cares? They made wonderful food and lattes!
On the left, an apple... thing, with flaky pastry surrounding vanilla custard with roasted apple bits on top. On the right, another morning (TJ's identical shirt notwithstanding), on which we split two chocolate tarts, one with raspberry, the other with banana.
And they were so cheerful! Look at these buns, joyous in anticipation of being chosen to be Your Breakfast! How can you deny them? Answer: by going for the chocolatey & fruity options instead. See above.
The only downer at Le Alaska were these bears, clearly living lives of quiet desperation.
Their existential angst was almost enough to put you off your food. But not quite.
Here was a spot I went twice for lattes, because they actually opened at a decent hour (unlike the place directly across the street from the hotel, which opened whenever it felt like it, mostly after 10). What I ordered was an iced latte, which is what you see on the left. Hiding behind it is what you see on the right, a scone with butter and pear compote that appeared without prompting. This is an institution in Korea called, "service," and I had forgotten about it until this happened! Lovely country, Korea.
So, now you know what to expect when you find yourself craving a hit and you're in Seoul. (That is, you will not be able to walk without a latte hitting you in the face and diving down your throat).
Cheers and bottoms up, fellow addicts!
It was either going to be a tunnel to coffee wonderland, or a horrible gaping maw that would close on us when we got to the far end. Only one way to find out!
And a tunnel to Wonderland it was! Beautiful natural light poured in over small trees (all real), hung with necklaces of felt stones. Why? Because they could! It was very charming, and sold chocolate chip cookies with entire 1/2 oz. squares of chocolate as chips! I could live here.
And on the way out, they wish you a nice, orange day. As testament to my first paragraph, please note that they are directly across the street from a different café, which we also frequented!
It's called the Four M Cafe, and from the front, it looks like a painfully modern, dubstep-blasting place with dark furniture with sharp edges and tiny tables that look like they'll collapse under a single cup. Surprise! It looks like this inside:
Here's a close-up of the 2nd breakfast I had from the post about Insadong: blueberry panna cotta and latte. Good job, Four M! Way to shake off the shackles of expectation!
A spot we ate at several times, and found out later our client loves, too (because it reminds her of her Belgian homeland's coffee spots), was Le Alaska.
Why is it called that? Who can say? Why French and Alaskan? Who cares? They made wonderful food and lattes!
On the left, an apple... thing, with flaky pastry surrounding vanilla custard with roasted apple bits on top. On the right, another morning (TJ's identical shirt notwithstanding), on which we split two chocolate tarts, one with raspberry, the other with banana.
WE HAVE NO REGRETS.
And they were so cheerful! Look at these buns, joyous in anticipation of being chosen to be Your Breakfast! How can you deny them? Answer: by going for the chocolatey & fruity options instead. See above.
The only downer at Le Alaska were these bears, clearly living lives of quiet desperation.
Their existential angst was almost enough to put you off your food. But not quite.
Here was a spot I went twice for lattes, because they actually opened at a decent hour (unlike the place directly across the street from the hotel, which opened whenever it felt like it, mostly after 10). What I ordered was an iced latte, which is what you see on the left. Hiding behind it is what you see on the right, a scone with butter and pear compote that appeared without prompting. This is an institution in Korea called, "service," and I had forgotten about it until this happened! Lovely country, Korea.
So, now you know what to expect when you find yourself craving a hit and you're in Seoul. (That is, you will not be able to walk without a latte hitting you in the face and diving down your throat).
Cheers and bottoms up, fellow addicts!
Burnina-
Here is my shoulder, the day after the Great Burning. That strap is usually the color of me, or at least close. You can see some of my more usual color over to the right, where I was witlessly protected by my swim suit from the righteous wrath of the sun. (What was I thinking, leaving my northerly haunts to impudently - IMPUDENTLY - swan about the tropics? The nerve!)
On the left is one of the many swatches of self that came off in Korea. What you see on the right is my thumb inserted between the burnt layer and the layer of somewhat-better skin, first step in harvesting what you see to the left. Yup.
Eventually, at about the end of our time in Korea, I got to this stage: still discolored, but no longer sloughing skin like a snake.
At present, from a decently far off vantage point, my back just looks tan. Closer up, you can see a weird splotchiness to it, with that bumpiness you can see in the photo just above. I wear my basketball-textured cloak as a reminder of my shame, and the importance - the imperitance! - of applying sunscreen EVERYWHERE.
Rejec-
My body is rejecting itself. Everything south of my navel has decided to secede from the union, and friends - I want to let it. Tragically, the hip bone is connected to some other bones, and all the organs housed thereby, and I can't. I am left mooning around in my room - never far from the attached bath - with the wide, staring eyes of the shell-shocked. At least this is the final leg, and we have met up with Sue, who is charming and wonderful and totally capable of doing all the work stuff I might have been doing, so the company will march on, unhindered. In fact, if I thought I could make a transatlantic flight with dignity and upholstery intact, I would explore the option of going home and being miserable there, but that is not a choice open to me, despite promises made by certain OTC pill bottles.
In the meantime, however, having capitulated and bought decent internet speed (20 Euro per DAY, what is this INHUMANITY?!), I will distract myself with the pre-illth tales of adventure still waiting to be told, and test this new connectivity (skepticalface) with photo uploads.
In the meantime, however, having capitulated and bought decent internet speed (20 Euro per DAY, what is this INHUMANITY?!), I will distract myself with the pre-illth tales of adventure still waiting to be told, and test this new connectivity (skepticalface) with photo uploads.
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Nuddipantsifica-
A text-mostly interlude for you, dear reader, as Amsterdam resolutely refuses to do more than dribble connectivity in my general direction. Pay no attention to the scratching of my quill pen and the dim flicker of candlelight.
I figured today I would tell you the tale of Dragon Hill. (That already sounds epic, doesn't it?) There are no pictures for this (bonus), for reasons that will shortly become clear.
Dragon Hill is a jjimjilbang, or Korean spa. Spas in Korea are more like public baths with extra features. These are not the dim, contemplative rooms of the Red Door, where mediocre wooden flutes whoot over faint sloshings as a Ph.D. in Rubbing People plies her trade. These are brightly-lit, enormous rooms full of naked women, running around and chatting, hanging out and watching Korean soap operas before they go sprawl around in pools of various temperatures. There are also places to get massages and scrubs (look under "Hotel").
Now, as a sturdy white lady of 175cm (5'8, my arith-metric may be negotiable, but the inches thing is on), I am easily identified from afar on a Korean street. This ease of recognition is only enhanced by the context of a room full of nekkid Korean ladies. Somewhat luckily, Dragon Hill is pretty famous and near a large train station, so there are other foreigners there. A nice Dutch lady asked what she was supposed to do once she had on her jjimjilbang pajamas, and I had to break it to her that the next step was to take them off and stride with pride (and two tiny washcloth things) down to the room of peril (so called because it is all stone surfaces, slick with all the water).
Upon entry, you have the option of selecting a package of services in addition to general access to shared facilities (like the pools o' water and the coed swimming pool, if you brought a suit. The coed spaces are never-nude). I knew I wanted a scrub, because scrubs are super effective at getting rid of your lingering sunburny bits, and you feel positively shiny at the end. So I picked the first package that offered scrubbing, and was for women. I should have been suspicious, Internet, because it was ONLY for women, and they used the word "placenta." That is... a scary word, Internet. I thought it was a Konglishism.
Also, hip bath. When I hear that, I think it's a deep bath that, say, comes up to my hip. That I sort of hang out in while my skin gets all soft and squishy from the lovely rose petals or whatever are in there with me. Hoo boy, was I wrong.
First off, after the lovely visitor guide lady had run me through where I was supposed to go and in what order, I got my stuff put away in my locker (with my handy-dandy rubber wristband which has an RFID chip that allows you to sum your purchases inside and pay when you leave, as well as to get access to your locker, without caring if it gets wet or not). Then I went down to the room for the... Oriental Hip Bath. There were no baths, dear reader. There were, after I had showered, some weird stool things with holes in them in a dim room, each with a hot plate under it. I was the only patron there, and the lady managing the room was not a speaker of English. Whatever my current level of Korean can accurately be described as, it is not comprehensive enough for her to explain what was going on there.
You know how sometimes you put your head over a steaming bowl with a towel over the whole business when you have a cold? It was kind of like that. I was made to understand I should sit on one of these weird stool bits, and then I was presented with a pink poncho that went over my head and to the ground around me and the stool. No arm holes. She proceeded to put a pot of tea on the burner under the stool, creating a little steam tent for everything except my head. I became a soup dumpling. This part, friends, is where I started repeating under my breath a mantra taught to me in my youth by my sister, "We all suffer to be beautiful." I think she was talking about the occasional curling-iron burn, but I have decided that suffering to the dignity can fall under this categorization, too.
It got really hot in there, Internet. (Yes, steam is hot, tell your friends). When the attendant saw me feebly trying to sneak the collar of my tent out to get some air, she came over and with complete dispassion, proceeded to flap the entire garment about 12 times to release steam and let in air. It was like a time-lapse of a recidivist flasher. (She go to wear clothes, by the way). After about fifteen minutes of being a bao,* I asked, "ten minutes? five?" and the attendant laughed and said I'd be done at 7:10, a good forty minutes away. I'm not sure if I cried or if it was just sweat/condensation.
In the room, because the steam was so contained, was a television, tuned since I'd walked in to a Korean soap opera. Without subtitles, I couldn't follow more than the fact that there were attractive young people in tortured love, and their parents were constantly meddling in their affairs. One successful young man's mother clearly didn't think the girl he was with was good enough for him, and I was just starting to get my head around the underdog character's troubling past when the attendant changed the channel to a totally bewildering reality competition involving 9 male competitors, each dressed like a waiter, driving around the city with a certain briefcase. They frequently tried to steal one another's briefcases, and one scoundrel went into a store and bought four identical briefcases. I think I understood the soap opera better. Anyway, in this baffling way, time eventually - ever so eventually - passed.
Once I was considered sufficiently steamed, I was released into the wild for my scrub/massage. This was gotten to by going through the big room of pools of various temperatures, full of other people. It is at this moment that I remembered that I had a tattoo. It is in Hangul (Korean alphabet) and Hanmoon (Chinese characters, per the Koreans). It's a very positive thing about Korea, and a bit of a pun (because I cannot help myself), but Korea is not a nation of tattoo-havers. They are more of a nation of tattoo-frowners-upon. Thankfully, my scrub lady seemed to find it a charming affectation, rather than a sign that I was likely to have secreted a gun on my person for the doing of criminal acts.
So. Scrub ladies. The setup, which is typical of a jjimjilbang, is a rank of four or five massage tables - padded bench things - covered in waterproof upholstery. You beach yourself like a tense whale on your couch of choice, and your scrub lady proceeds to scrub you and beat your muscles into submission. Internet, you have no secrets from your scrub lady. In the west, and later in Thailand, as I discovered, you are provided temporary undergarments to protect the scrub lady from your most personal bits. That is some Seatec Astronomy stuff to Korea. They are thorough.
Apparently, this whole package I'd gone for was suited to ladies because they spend a lot of time trying to reassure themselves (and, I guess, you?) that you don't suffer from wandering uterus syndrome by repeatedly poking you in the lower abdomen, as if to say, "Yup! Still there!" I had a bruise right over where I think my appendix might be, from the enthusiastic reassurances. I wish I'd had the Korean to say, "That's not a tumor or anything, I'm just pudgy." I think it would have saved a lot of time and concern.
So I got scrubbed very thoroughly, massaged and moderately beaten, and then sent to go sit in a hot pool. After all that, I got to shower and put on my Dragon Hill pajamas and go down to the game room, where I met TJ and played a racing game. Sadly, we could not get the two racing games to operate simultaneously, so we couldn't race each other, but we played some lightning round air hockey and wandered the facility some. He decided he'd head back to the hotel, and I stayed a while longer to take advantage of the massage chairs in the ladies' locker room (which sounds much more utilitarian than it was - nice soft lighting, makeup counters for miles, lovely seating areas, and the sleeping room were all there, in addition to the salon and a small shop for buying new underwear and snacks. My Kindle and I hung out, and when my muscles felt sufficiently like wet noodles, I pronounced it a successful jjimjilbanging and went back to Sinsa station.
The cherry on top (so to speak - cherries do not belong on top of things. They are to be enjoyed by themselves, and do not speak to me of maraschino cherries, for they are a dread creation of which mankind should be ashamed) was this delicious scoop of dark, dark chocolate gelato from Caffe Bene on my way back.
And that was Penultimate Korea Day!
*Chinese steamed bun, you know: white, plump, sweaty.
I figured today I would tell you the tale of Dragon Hill. (That already sounds epic, doesn't it?) There are no pictures for this (bonus), for reasons that will shortly become clear.
 |
| Not TOTALLY textual. |
Now, as a sturdy white lady of 175cm (5'8, my arith-metric may be negotiable, but the inches thing is on), I am easily identified from afar on a Korean street. This ease of recognition is only enhanced by the context of a room full of nekkid Korean ladies. Somewhat luckily, Dragon Hill is pretty famous and near a large train station, so there are other foreigners there. A nice Dutch lady asked what she was supposed to do once she had on her jjimjilbang pajamas, and I had to break it to her that the next step was to take them off and stride with pride (and two tiny washcloth things) down to the room of peril (so called because it is all stone surfaces, slick with all the water).
Upon entry, you have the option of selecting a package of services in addition to general access to shared facilities (like the pools o' water and the coed swimming pool, if you brought a suit. The coed spaces are never-nude). I knew I wanted a scrub, because scrubs are super effective at getting rid of your lingering sunburny bits, and you feel positively shiny at the end. So I picked the first package that offered scrubbing, and was for women. I should have been suspicious, Internet, because it was ONLY for women, and they used the word "placenta." That is... a scary word, Internet. I thought it was a Konglishism.
 |
| Big menu. Like a diner. A diner for your dermis. |
First off, after the lovely visitor guide lady had run me through where I was supposed to go and in what order, I got my stuff put away in my locker (with my handy-dandy rubber wristband which has an RFID chip that allows you to sum your purchases inside and pay when you leave, as well as to get access to your locker, without caring if it gets wet or not). Then I went down to the room for the... Oriental Hip Bath. There were no baths, dear reader. There were, after I had showered, some weird stool things with holes in them in a dim room, each with a hot plate under it. I was the only patron there, and the lady managing the room was not a speaker of English. Whatever my current level of Korean can accurately be described as, it is not comprehensive enough for her to explain what was going on there.
You know how sometimes you put your head over a steaming bowl with a towel over the whole business when you have a cold? It was kind of like that. I was made to understand I should sit on one of these weird stool bits, and then I was presented with a pink poncho that went over my head and to the ground around me and the stool. No arm holes. She proceeded to put a pot of tea on the burner under the stool, creating a little steam tent for everything except my head. I became a soup dumpling. This part, friends, is where I started repeating under my breath a mantra taught to me in my youth by my sister, "We all suffer to be beautiful." I think she was talking about the occasional curling-iron burn, but I have decided that suffering to the dignity can fall under this categorization, too.
It got really hot in there, Internet. (Yes, steam is hot, tell your friends). When the attendant saw me feebly trying to sneak the collar of my tent out to get some air, she came over and with complete dispassion, proceeded to flap the entire garment about 12 times to release steam and let in air. It was like a time-lapse of a recidivist flasher. (She go to wear clothes, by the way). After about fifteen minutes of being a bao,* I asked, "ten minutes? five?" and the attendant laughed and said I'd be done at 7:10, a good forty minutes away. I'm not sure if I cried or if it was just sweat/condensation.
In the room, because the steam was so contained, was a television, tuned since I'd walked in to a Korean soap opera. Without subtitles, I couldn't follow more than the fact that there were attractive young people in tortured love, and their parents were constantly meddling in their affairs. One successful young man's mother clearly didn't think the girl he was with was good enough for him, and I was just starting to get my head around the underdog character's troubling past when the attendant changed the channel to a totally bewildering reality competition involving 9 male competitors, each dressed like a waiter, driving around the city with a certain briefcase. They frequently tried to steal one another's briefcases, and one scoundrel went into a store and bought four identical briefcases. I think I understood the soap opera better. Anyway, in this baffling way, time eventually - ever so eventually - passed.
Once I was considered sufficiently steamed, I was released into the wild for my scrub/massage. This was gotten to by going through the big room of pools of various temperatures, full of other people. It is at this moment that I remembered that I had a tattoo. It is in Hangul (Korean alphabet) and Hanmoon (Chinese characters, per the Koreans). It's a very positive thing about Korea, and a bit of a pun (because I cannot help myself), but Korea is not a nation of tattoo-havers. They are more of a nation of tattoo-frowners-upon. Thankfully, my scrub lady seemed to find it a charming affectation, rather than a sign that I was likely to have secreted a gun on my person for the doing of criminal acts.
So. Scrub ladies. The setup, which is typical of a jjimjilbang, is a rank of four or five massage tables - padded bench things - covered in waterproof upholstery. You beach yourself like a tense whale on your couch of choice, and your scrub lady proceeds to scrub you and beat your muscles into submission. Internet, you have no secrets from your scrub lady. In the west, and later in Thailand, as I discovered, you are provided temporary undergarments to protect the scrub lady from your most personal bits. That is some Seatec Astronomy stuff to Korea. They are thorough.
Apparently, this whole package I'd gone for was suited to ladies because they spend a lot of time trying to reassure themselves (and, I guess, you?) that you don't suffer from wandering uterus syndrome by repeatedly poking you in the lower abdomen, as if to say, "Yup! Still there!" I had a bruise right over where I think my appendix might be, from the enthusiastic reassurances. I wish I'd had the Korean to say, "That's not a tumor or anything, I'm just pudgy." I think it would have saved a lot of time and concern.
So I got scrubbed very thoroughly, massaged and moderately beaten, and then sent to go sit in a hot pool. After all that, I got to shower and put on my Dragon Hill pajamas and go down to the game room, where I met TJ and played a racing game. Sadly, we could not get the two racing games to operate simultaneously, so we couldn't race each other, but we played some lightning round air hockey and wandered the facility some. He decided he'd head back to the hotel, and I stayed a while longer to take advantage of the massage chairs in the ladies' locker room (which sounds much more utilitarian than it was - nice soft lighting, makeup counters for miles, lovely seating areas, and the sleeping room were all there, in addition to the salon and a small shop for buying new underwear and snacks. My Kindle and I hung out, and when my muscles felt sufficiently like wet noodles, I pronounced it a successful jjimjilbanging and went back to Sinsa station.
The cherry on top (so to speak - cherries do not belong on top of things. They are to be enjoyed by themselves, and do not speak to me of maraschino cherries, for they are a dread creation of which mankind should be ashamed) was this delicious scoop of dark, dark chocolate gelato from Caffe Bene on my way back.
 |
| DINNER OF CHAMPIONS |
And that was Penultimate Korea Day!
*Chinese steamed bun, you know: white, plump, sweaty.
Cultura-
So, this is out of order, but there is more stuff I did in Korea. Also in Thailand. I just got so excited about the elephants, I had to share! Priorities. I am in the airport lounge at Schiphol, enjoying a real, tearjerkingly fast internet connection at last. So here are photos and narration!
One of the things I did in Korea was visit one of my favorite places in Seoul, Insadong. It's the craft area of the city, and it's super Korean. By that, I mean that all signs, even those for foreign companies that usually keep their signs in the Latin alphabet (Starbucks, Etude House, etc.) are in Hangul. It's also full of tiny shops that are one-off purchase points for a variety of handmade items, like pottery, paper, and clothing. There are a lot of places that sell items completely unique to the maker and vendor, and they're beautiful. It's like being in a really active museum, where everything you're admiring is for sale. (To prove this hypothesis, I bought some stuff. For science!)
First, one cannot embark on an epic journey without breakfast. In that, we can all learn a valuable lesson from our hobbit friends. In fact, on this special day, we had two breakfasts, because we paid attention to the LOTR. This was the first, had at a bakery in our neighborhood called Le Alaska. Those are lattes and delicious pastries of a flaky and fruity sort.
This was Second Breakfast, blueberry panna cotta for me and raspberry for TJ. Obviously, round two on the lattes, too. These were had at the 4M Cafe, because we'd previously seen the panna cottae (LINGUIST) sitting in their display case, tempting us, and we are not strong. They were delicious.
Suitably fed and watered (with coffee, the best kind of water), we walked to Apgujeong Station and hopped on the subway. On the way there, we passed this little restaurant thing, I guess, which had a funky roof made out of kimchi-pot shards, and a couple of intact kimchi pots. It's not a place whose architecture makes it likely I'll enjoy what they serve, but the roof deserved some attention, and so I present it to you:
Okay, and then we were on the subway. It's weird to take photos on the subway, so I didn't. Instead, I admired the wonderful Seoul subway map. Does anyone know if/where I can get a copy of that, suitable for hanging up on a wall? I would like one. Disclaimer: I should tell you not to steal one from the train and send it to me in your deep dedication, because that would be illegal and a disservice to all the people trying to use it and not at all an amazing story I would tell people every time I showed it to them. Ahem. I really would prefer to purchase such an item through totally legal channels, for srs.
When we got out and eventually walked to Insadong, this was the first indication we had that we were approaching craftiness: a stonemason's yard/shop.
This is the approximate feeling of standing between these two monkeys, being judged hard. They had the most character of anything else in the yard, and I liked them, despite the judging.
This store was right next door to the stoneyard, and it sold cloths that had been dyed entirely naturally, like with plants. I was amazed at the saturation they could get. Not amazed enough to get anything, but impressed.
Then, we moved on to one of my favorite kinds of stores, a paper store!
Look at those beautiful jagged edges! Those textured pages! Those saturated colors and terrific fibers! Look, calligraphy!
Paper, glorious paper!
O joy, o rapture! Brushes! Those are for big calligraphy and paintings, for signs and Large Art. They are also aesthetic objects in their own right. I feel the strange compulsion to rub my face in them. God, I love writing and painting implements. I will have a room in my mansion just for my personal papetrie, and in it I will spend many happy hours, petting my brushes and sniffing my fibrous, cloth-rich sheets.
Ahem. I'm back.
We saw something totally new to me while walking down the main drag of Insadong, and that was these wild curly ice cream antlers.
They're hollow, and the vendor pumps soft-serve vanilla through the whole thing. As you see, this is a tube the size of a toddler, and resembles nothing in execution so much as a model of a wormhole to diabetes.
Per the neighborhood in which we were, there were a lot of pottery/ceramic shops, of which this is a good example. I love that celadon color for pottery, and some of the nice, simple shapes of Korean traditional ceramics. I'm also pretty okay with the complicated layered and woven textures some of them have, like that big vase/pot second from the left on the middle shelf. None of these items, tragically, is coming to America, because physics says no.
The place I was looking for, I eventually found, which was the craft/shopping center my friend Hyo took me to during my second-to-last weekend in Korea. It's full of one-off designer shops for handicrafts, so you're not allowed to take pictures inside. Korea, as a nation, is a land of very loose adherence to copyright laws (movies get put out there at the same time they do in the States, otherwise they'd make no money off them, e.g.), and copying is a real concern of the vendors and artists who work here. I bought Christmas presents here when I came in 2010, and all the shops I bought from then were still in business, full of new designs they thought up while I was away, (solely for my benefit, obviously). I got some really gorgeous things from them and a few others while here, and just enjoyed how much wonderful art/design there was to admire.
The building itself is pretty fun, and nicely designed. It is reminiscent of the Guggenheim, in that the whole thing is a long ramp up.
If you look closely (or zoom in) there are sculptures on top of that green roof - the whole place is a bit of an outdoor art space, too, there are different exhibits all the time. If you looked at that older blog post linked above, the one up then was giant snowmen. These are giraffes, and the level below are sheep. I choose to preserve the memory of the giraffes, as sheep and I have an ongoing conflict of interest (viz. they think they should poop on everything I love, and I disagree).
There are stairs at each corner, in case you have a more immediate need to ascend or de-, and enormous roses climb up the middle. Random strangers for scale.
Here is clue #2 you are in Insadong: even Starbucks has a sign in Hangeul.
Suh-tah-bok-suh coppee.
We passed this shop full of paintings with this one displayed out front, and had to stop. I'm afraid my camera does not do it justice. I love landscapes, and this is one of my favorites to date. The place my phone camera really falls down is capturing the quality of light, which is fantastic in person. It looks like some of the places I have been in the Korean countryside - not only looks like them, but feels like them. It's also done with a palette knife, which is a medium/style I like, too. Anyway, here is a mediocre picture of a really good one.
And here is a fellow painting fans for people as they watched/requested. Nice to see someone doing it live, and if I'd had room to pack it and time to let it dry, I might've brought one back.
Okay, this is a terrible picture. What it captures is an amazing idea, though. That is a stand selling potatoes that are cut in a spiral while on a stick, stretched out like a slinky, and deep fried, so you get one long spiral potato chip on a stick at the end. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!
The reason I didn't eat one of those brilliant things is that we had passed a tonkasu restaurant on our way to Insadong from the subway, and Internet, there are few things in this world I love as much as I love tonkasu. So here's what tonkasu is: fried pork cutlet. You'd think, "Aw, this is easy! What is she rhapsodizing about now?" and the answer, friends, is the sauce. That square dish with the brown sauce goes on the tonkasu, and then, by their powers combined, it is Captain Tasty.
I got curry tonkasu, and got a little sad remembering Curry Lady from Daejeon, who disappeared one day, taking her charming smile and curry bowls with her, and forced us to find somewhere else to get our lunches 3 times a week.
Wandering around the food part of the neighborhood, we came across this shell-shocked looking octopus on a sign, which I show you as further evidence for the fact that, if there can be an adorable cartoon mascot for something in Korea, there will be.
Here it is, cheerfully announcing its oppressor's name in little red dialogue-flowers of joy. suicidalfood.blogspot.com would explode in this country.
Picture of octopus for Sara. For those saddened by this chapter of our story, go watch Oktapodi, the award-winning short film by Studio Gobelins.
You're welcome.
So that was Insadong! Land of culture, craft, and tasty food, both delicious and disturbing! This, surprisingly, did not take the whole day. As we made our way back to where we would transfer to go south of the river and back to Gangnam, it occurred to us that while we were northerly, we might as well hit up Dragon Hill Spa in Yongnam...
A story for another time.
One of the things I did in Korea was visit one of my favorite places in Seoul, Insadong. It's the craft area of the city, and it's super Korean. By that, I mean that all signs, even those for foreign companies that usually keep their signs in the Latin alphabet (Starbucks, Etude House, etc.) are in Hangul. It's also full of tiny shops that are one-off purchase points for a variety of handmade items, like pottery, paper, and clothing. There are a lot of places that sell items completely unique to the maker and vendor, and they're beautiful. It's like being in a really active museum, where everything you're admiring is for sale. (To prove this hypothesis, I bought some stuff. For science!)
First, one cannot embark on an epic journey without breakfast. In that, we can all learn a valuable lesson from our hobbit friends. In fact, on this special day, we had two breakfasts, because we paid attention to the LOTR. This was the first, had at a bakery in our neighborhood called Le Alaska. Those are lattes and delicious pastries of a flaky and fruity sort.
This was Second Breakfast, blueberry panna cotta for me and raspberry for TJ. Obviously, round two on the lattes, too. These were had at the 4M Cafe, because we'd previously seen the panna cottae (LINGUIST) sitting in their display case, tempting us, and we are not strong. They were delicious.
Suitably fed and watered (with coffee, the best kind of water), we walked to Apgujeong Station and hopped on the subway. On the way there, we passed this little restaurant thing, I guess, which had a funky roof made out of kimchi-pot shards, and a couple of intact kimchi pots. It's not a place whose architecture makes it likely I'll enjoy what they serve, but the roof deserved some attention, and so I present it to you:
Okay, and then we were on the subway. It's weird to take photos on the subway, so I didn't. Instead, I admired the wonderful Seoul subway map. Does anyone know if/where I can get a copy of that, suitable for hanging up on a wall? I would like one. Disclaimer: I should tell you not to steal one from the train and send it to me in your deep dedication, because that would be illegal and a disservice to all the people trying to use it and not at all an amazing story I would tell people every time I showed it to them. Ahem. I really would prefer to purchase such an item through totally legal channels, for srs.
When we got out and eventually walked to Insadong, this was the first indication we had that we were approaching craftiness: a stonemason's yard/shop.
This is the approximate feeling of standing between these two monkeys, being judged hard. They had the most character of anything else in the yard, and I liked them, despite the judging.
Then, we moved on to one of my favorite kinds of stores, a paper store!
Look at those beautiful jagged edges! Those textured pages! Those saturated colors and terrific fibers! Look, calligraphy!
Paper, glorious paper!
 |
| Also pictured, glorious fans and inkstones and chops |
Ahem. I'm back.
We saw something totally new to me while walking down the main drag of Insadong, and that was these wild curly ice cream antlers.
They're hollow, and the vendor pumps soft-serve vanilla through the whole thing. As you see, this is a tube the size of a toddler, and resembles nothing in execution so much as a model of a wormhole to diabetes.
The place I was looking for, I eventually found, which was the craft/shopping center my friend Hyo took me to during my second-to-last weekend in Korea. It's full of one-off designer shops for handicrafts, so you're not allowed to take pictures inside. Korea, as a nation, is a land of very loose adherence to copyright laws (movies get put out there at the same time they do in the States, otherwise they'd make no money off them, e.g.), and copying is a real concern of the vendors and artists who work here. I bought Christmas presents here when I came in 2010, and all the shops I bought from then were still in business, full of new designs they thought up while I was away, (solely for my benefit, obviously). I got some really gorgeous things from them and a few others while here, and just enjoyed how much wonderful art/design there was to admire.
The building itself is pretty fun, and nicely designed. It is reminiscent of the Guggenheim, in that the whole thing is a long ramp up.
There are stairs at each corner, in case you have a more immediate need to ascend or de-, and enormous roses climb up the middle. Random strangers for scale.
Here is clue #2 you are in Insadong: even Starbucks has a sign in Hangeul.
Suh-tah-bok-suh coppee.
We passed this shop full of paintings with this one displayed out front, and had to stop. I'm afraid my camera does not do it justice. I love landscapes, and this is one of my favorites to date. The place my phone camera really falls down is capturing the quality of light, which is fantastic in person. It looks like some of the places I have been in the Korean countryside - not only looks like them, but feels like them. It's also done with a palette knife, which is a medium/style I like, too. Anyway, here is a mediocre picture of a really good one.
And here is a fellow painting fans for people as they watched/requested. Nice to see someone doing it live, and if I'd had room to pack it and time to let it dry, I might've brought one back.
Okay, this is a terrible picture. What it captures is an amazing idea, though. That is a stand selling potatoes that are cut in a spiral while on a stick, stretched out like a slinky, and deep fried, so you get one long spiral potato chip on a stick at the end. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!
The reason I didn't eat one of those brilliant things is that we had passed a tonkasu restaurant on our way to Insadong from the subway, and Internet, there are few things in this world I love as much as I love tonkasu. So here's what tonkasu is: fried pork cutlet. You'd think, "Aw, this is easy! What is she rhapsodizing about now?" and the answer, friends, is the sauce. That square dish with the brown sauce goes on the tonkasu, and then, by their powers combined, it is Captain Tasty.
I got curry tonkasu, and got a little sad remembering Curry Lady from Daejeon, who disappeared one day, taking her charming smile and curry bowls with her, and forced us to find somewhere else to get our lunches 3 times a week.
Wandering around the food part of the neighborhood, we came across this shell-shocked looking octopus on a sign, which I show you as further evidence for the fact that, if there can be an adorable cartoon mascot for something in Korea, there will be.
Here it is, cheerfully announcing its oppressor's name in little red dialogue-flowers of joy. suicidalfood.blogspot.com would explode in this country.
 |
| Heeeeeelp Meeeeeeee! |
Picture of octopus for Sara. For those saddened by this chapter of our story, go watch Oktapodi, the award-winning short film by Studio Gobelins.
You're welcome.
So that was Insadong! Land of culture, craft, and tasty food, both delicious and disturbing! This, surprisingly, did not take the whole day. As we made our way back to where we would transfer to go south of the river and back to Gangnam, it occurred to us that while we were northerly, we might as well hit up Dragon Hill Spa in Yongnam...
A story for another time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)