Korean Adventure:4 Seoul Day 3

 

Korean Adventure:5

Seoul Day 3: Thanks to Seoul Metro

When I sat down to chart out the itinerary for day 3 in Seoul I realized that it is impossible to cover the remaining Seoul in 9 Am To 6 PM, the timings for places to remain open. But thanks to Seoul Metro I could visit many of them without losing much of time in travel.

Here let me make it clear at the outset that this is not comprehensive guide for travel in Seoul because I had to leave out many places due, most important, to lack of time. Timings of places being second and the last but not the least, personal stamina. Though years of gyming and swimming helped me a lot but after all every body has its own limitations! Including my own!

With 24 lines and more than 500 stations mostly underground, Seoul Metro criss-crosses through Seoul leaving no nook or corner unconnected. I simply wondered when did they develop such mammoth infrastructure after 1952, [Actually the work began in 1971, more praise worthy] [Not only in Seoul but in Busan, Incheon,Daegu and other urban establishments too] when we were busy in nurturing a dynasty and siphoning out the money to Swiss banks. Financial support may be from the West, mostly America, but to build it you require hard work from the locals. [To cite local example, Investors are not ready to invest in Bihar but are eager to, in Maharashtra because the locals ARE hardworking especially those coming from Konkan and Western Maharashtra: observation by none other than Hon.Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar] Koreans have proved that they are not only ambitious but extremely industrious as a nation. 

After breakfast of bacon, dumpling [Momo] with stuffing of seafood and chicken, Japanese tempura, fritters of assorted seafood, mostly shrimps and few western tit-bits I set out for exploration of Gang-nam, actually this is the way it should be written, but everybody joins them together. First halt was at Bongeun-sa Buddhist temple. I got down on station Samseong [on line two, which practically is life line of Seoul. It is a circular line. The line operating in clockwise fashion is known as inner line while the one in anticlockwise, outer] and after taking exit 6 I was at Gang-nam business park. There stood many skyscrapers, housing a lot many corporate/industrial houses. Many of them have Huge LCD displays which were running even at that hour of the day, early morning. One on the COEX mall building was absolutely wonderful, very very eye catching. Most popular one [they change regularly], is crashing of wave, but it was not running when I was there. Walked a few meters towards the temple and I was standing in front of the main gate of most famous mall of Gang-nam COEX mall.

Well, though malls are malls in the end, this one outshines every other not only in dimensions but extravaganza too. COEX means COvention centers and EXhibition halls. I entered through main door [it has so many of them, one even opens directly on Samseong station] and got lost. Because it has the largest underground mall in the world! Again shops and shops and shops of brands absolutely unknown in India. May be we don’t have that affording buyers’ class! Really! I saw one overcoat in Burberry, it was costing Rs.One Lakh Fifty-five thousands [Rs1.55, 000/-] and there were many such on the display! After aimlessly wondering for some time and realizing that even my class of Indians cannot afford the exhibits it’s better to leave before you start feeling really small!

Just outside the mall there is that famous symbol of Gang-nam dance.

Hands folded in a particular posture [? Mudra].
And there were many enthuse who were getting photographed in the same pose in front of it. There is/was another sculpture may be depicting some historical past of Seoul/Korea which was unknown to me. Tangent building, building in the back ground, Hyundai’s architectural show piece that stands on the opposite side of road, much tom-tomed by Lonely Planet writer, turned out be something that looked like a structure in perpetual renovation. So called artistic architecture, so says Lonely Planet author, was nothing but scaffolding with lots of glass panes thrown in. There were so many other modern art sculptures of which I could not make out A from Z.

Just a block ahead is Buddhist temple of Bongeun-sa. My observation, while translating Korean word in English script there are many vowels thrown together at the same time and may be that makes it difficult to pronounce for non Korean speaker.

It was really difficult to locate the temple in that jungle of concrete. But it stands majestically on the slopes of some mountain [Sudo, Wikipedia Knowledge] with its entrance just in front of yet another gate of COEX mall. Though the popular belief is, Korean to be a Buddhist state it’s not so. More than fifty percent of population does not declare their religious affliction. On the contrary Buddhist and Christians, mostly Protestants are equal in number but together too did not pass the majority of atheists. Religious rituals are mixed. Weddings are solemnized in Christian manner while the funerals are totally Buddhist.

There are statues of monsters at the main gate that are guardians and are supposed to drive away the evil spirits, a concept common in far Eastern mythology. The ambiance of main sanctum sanctorum was very pious and quiet. Many disciples were offering their prayers in most earnest fashion. I too offered my respect by bowing down in typical Korean way. The ceiling of the hall had many Chinese paper lanterns. Some were in intricate floral pattern that might have required hours of skilled work to make.

Outside the main temple there is a big statue of Buddha, known as Maitrya Buddha, a concept taken from Hinduism. To offer prayers to the lord there are other ways too. Just near the statue there is this couplet of huge bell and drum, by beating them one invokes the blessings of the lord.

Surprisingly it has many restaurants on the premises which offer meals from different Diaspora. Temple itself serves special meal known as Baru,  it is a rice dish but  I went for Parisian bakery on the premises to have freshly baked stuffed croissants.

Korea especially Seoul is known for its plastic surgery clinics. And they really abound. It’s said that Korean parents keep money aside to gift their wards plastic surgery of their choice, whether it’s removing the double eyelid or going under a knife for nose job! I saw many such around the hotel BWP where I was staying.

By the same subway line 2 I got down at Dongdaemun Culture and History center station to visit design plaza by the same name. After taking the exit one what stood in front of was mind boggling. Absolutely futuristic structure totally in contrast to the one had visited just a few minutes ago.

Dongdaemun Design Plaza or in short DDP stands where once stood the Seoul Fortress. And the transformation is so profound that you hardly believe that it stands on the relics from the past. And it’s not that old, started just 8 years ago making Seoul ‘World Design Capital’.

I do not know how to describe the structure, it’s so intricate and beyond imagination.  Looks like UFO from outside .It has curves at so many places that I wondered how they could have designed it but more, how the builder did execute it?The building is equipped with diverse public spaces including exhibition hall, conference hall, design museum, the design lab, the academy hall, media center, seminar room, Dongdaemun History and Culture Park, the designer's lounge, and the design market. It promotes newer talents through holding workshops and making the platform available for the sale of their finished product. There is a huge shop inside again designed futuristic-ally that sells these artifacts.  

The road outside is one of the busy thorough fares of Seoul and has Mega stores run by Hyundai the one which we relate to cars only, but here in Korea they have diversified a lot and have finger in every pie, retails, building construction, malls and many other. But that’s the story with every big conglomerate including Samsung and local oil company SK.

There stands a statue of a woman in many split layers [?Schizophrenic] I could not decipher the connotation. To mourn the recent tragedy at Itaewon Town all the Korean flags were furled half mast.                 

I don’t know and I still regret why I selected the next stop, again a palace, Changdeokgung. It’s supposed to most beautiful of the lot but it turned out to be just another palace. With verandas, gates, ramparts and chambers. Only redeeming feature is Huwon or the secret garden where Kings used to relax for a cup of coffee, recite poetry and read books from the library nearby. Unfortunately my camera said goodbye as the battery showed zero. I am going to borrow the photo from archive.

More than the palace Bukchon Hanok village was more damp squib. Imagine, if the lanes of Bhuleshwar from Mumbai, Kasaba Peth from Pune, Mahal from Nagpur or any such old locality from any big town/city is refurbished and presented as cultural heritage, one would easily see through it. It’s just a marketing gimmick. It became very contrasting because the shops in the next lane, Insa Dong, are ultramodern with salons and cafes and shops of the famous franchises.

In one of such shops I had my first Rice Tteok-bokki. A Korean specialty made famous by the K Dramas. The food stall though was more like a ‘Dhaba’ it was extremely clean and hygienic. The cook and the owner, a husband-wife team, wore spic and span clean aprons and used gloves to cook and serve the food. It again is a recipe of glutinous rice but served in spicy sauce for a change. Though it looked angry red, it was hardly pungent and I could eat it without any hiccups. [I get hiccups immediately if the food is even little bit more than pungent].I tried with chop sticks, I was using them frequently so far, but could not because they were made of stainless steel and not like in China or Japan where they are  either made of bamboo or soft wood. Wooden chop sticks have better grip. After trying for N number of times with steel chop-sticks and failing in to hold the rice cake and taking it to the mouth, I asked the cook for wooden chop-sticks. Instead she gave me a big wooden skewer, a big tooth pick and asked me to eat, like we eat the fruits. And I could finish it. Chewy to the core I had to bite and chew every morsel at least 100 times. A passable recipe, but won’t stand in Indian markets!

Being above the tropic of cancer and due to winter it gets dark earlier in Korea. Hardly was it 4-4.30 PM and it was dark like 6-6.30 PM in India. I had decided to visit Jongmyo-sa another Buddhist shrine that was not far off but by the time I would have reached it was sure to be closed. So dropped the idea.

As I said earlier it’s not possible to cover any city in just few days and definitely not Seoul, it’s huge! I could not visit Olympic park, Lotte tower, Han River side though they were not far from my hotel and those far away like Itaewon that became famous due to recent Halloween tragedy and Korean War memorial there, South city wall, oh so many! It seems that Seoul has kept them in waiting for me so that I can visit Seoul again!