In any event, by the time we got back to the entrance, we were very warm, as it was supposed to be 33°C that day. Nevertheless, we saw on our map there was supposed to be a monument to Admiral Yi Sun-shin across the street, so we stopped for a breather in the shade before continuing on to see the giant bronze statue in front of a huge carved granite tableau of one of his many famous battles. We then set off back to the hotel, thoroughly wilted with heat and humidity, though it was only noon.
Saturday we caught the KTX to Seoul, then took the one hop on the metro to City Hall. We first saw Sungnyemun, the South Gate, a monumental roofed gate in an ancient city wall that no longer exists. It seems as though the Japanese destroyed it, but the Koreans duly rebuilt it after they left. As this was by the famous Namdaemun Market, we decided to stroll through there. There wasn't much of interest, mostly clothing which we knew would never fit our typically American physiques. We did see boiled silkworm larvae, which we had heard about but wondered if we'd see any. I am told the smell is disgusting, but luckily the wind wasn't blowing in our direction. From here we hoofed it back in the direction of the metro stop and the palaces. Along the way we stopped at the Bank of Korea Museum, which has information on production, circulation, withdrawal, and destruction of money, as well as various specimens from around the world.
From here we walked to Deoksugung, the Western Palace, across from City Hall. We saw the changing of the guard, who are good at drilling, and have neat period costumes, but are in fact not guards so much as reenactors. The palace itself is a collection of mid- to late Joseon buildings, famous for being the refuge of King Seonjo during the Japanese invasions of the 16th-17th centuries, and the gilded prison of King Gojong at the hands of the Japanese in the 20th--most of which have been destroyed or rebuilt. I have seen a lot of traditional Korean architecture at this point, and I have to admit it's blurring together a bit. Invariably, all these buildings are constructed the same way, varying little except in dimensions and ornamental painting. They all have a similar story, too: Koreans build them, the Japanese burn them down, the Koreans rebuild them, the Japanese pull them down and build other stuff, the Koreans pull down the Japanese stuff and rebuild their own earlier stuff. Deoksugung Palace is also home of the national contemporary art museum, so we took a stroll in there, as well, before heading off to the great main palace, Gyeonbokgung.
Gyeonbokgung Palace is at the end of a great boulevard with a mall in the center. Along one side of the boulevard is the American Embassy, which, in contrast to the British Embassy (which we'd seen earlier) with its lone, sleepy security guard, is heavily fortified by a tall fence topped with razor wire and a policeman every so many feet. This also explained the score of police buses parked down the boulevard, with riot shields lined up against them. It seems that anti-American sentiment is waxing in South Korea, and anytime protesters want to make a big fuss, they target the U.S. Embassy. Judging how comparatively ignored their embassy is, I think the British got out of the empire-building business at the right time.
Along the boulevard mall are monumental statues, first to Admiral Yi, and then to King Sejong the Great, inventor (or patron of the inventors) of Hangul, the Korean alphabet. At the end of the mall is Gyeonbokgung, the main palace, torn down to build the Japanese colonial governor's headquarters, itself torn down to put the old palace back up. The gate is again guarded by impressively costumed but fake guards with blunt halberds. There's not much to say about it, in that it looks like the other palace, only scaled up, and unlike Deoksugung, it is overly crowded without intimate access to any of the buildings. Both buildings contain no artifacts, furnishings, etc., to show what the buildings looked like in use. The landscaping was better at Gyeonbokgung, however, with several ponds packed with fish and waterlilies, and it sits propitiously with its back to picturesque Bugaksan Mountain to the north, and somewhere unseen to the south, the Hangang River.
Headed back towards the metro, we were subjected to the bullhorn rantings of Korean evangelicals, threatening passersby with hell if they didn't convert. Their vinyl banner said as much, reading "Repent, Jesus = heaven, no belief = hell." I can't stand this shit at home, still less abroad. Koreans famously converted themselves to Christianity (at least the third of the country that is Christian--a third is Buddhist and the rest irreligious), but Americans have been dumping money and missions into Korea for the last 60 years, and have succeeded in establishing here the most fanatical, obnoxious variety of Christianity we have to offer. Of course, what's unfortunate is the reaction to Soviet imperialism is American and Christian imperialism. Your only alternative to imperialism in Korea is another flavor of imperialism. Maybe it's Buddhism that's the third way here, but even that was imported from abroad, only somewhat longer ago.
We had a hearty Japanese dinner at Seoul Station, then headed home on the KTX.
The next day Laura had it in mind to do some shopping in Cheonan, the next big town over from Asan. We took the metro from Asan, and here I clearly noticed a phenomenon I'd only peripherally noticed before: Korean women, largely older ones, avoiding sitting next to me on public conveyances. One woman sat down next to me because there were no other seats, then promptly moved to the other side when another seat opened up; a second woman sat next to me, and when the other seat next to her opened up, she scooted into it. Also next to a man, but at least the other man was Korean. Coming out of the metro, we had to slip past some earnest evangelical cultists pressing literature on exiting passengers. Thus, we'd hardly arrived at Cheonan, and already the trip was soured.
Having come out the station on the less attractive side (quite literally the wrong side of the tracks), with no map and only the occasional wifi signal, we stumped north up a long street, then headed east again, since the market she wanted to visit was northeast of the metro station. I declared the town a dump and grimly pressed on, while Laura was becoming a bit unraveled by the roughness of her environs. I reassured her there was little violent crime in South Korea, with scant success. Crossing back over the tracks, we found ourselves in an appreciably better neighborhood, and after a bit of guesswork and backtracking, at last came to our destination, a shopping mall thick with human beings to an extent reminiscent of Guinness bee-beards. Now it was my turn to be freaked out, since I like no space to contain more than one or two of the species.
We repaired to a Pizza Hut, since we were hungry, it was air conditioned (remember, it's 90 degrees here, with 90 percent humidity and no breezes, every day), relatively quiet, and we were curious about how the chain's offerings differed here. They are in fact quite different, and we ordered a bulgogi and garlic clove pizza, pointing to a picture the menu, as it was entirely in Korean and English is less frequently spoken in Cheonan, hoping against hope it was indeed beef and not grilled squid or the like. Despite the unorthodox toppings, it was in fact better than any Pizza Hut I've suffered in the U.S.
Having got a bit of my calm back, and both of us cooler and fed, we headed back into the mall next door, and Laura got several lovely pairs of earrings as keepsakes of the trip. Done fooling with the metro, we caught a taxi back to Asan and the hotel, then later went out for a more properly Korean dinner of galbi, barbecue.
Today I ventured out briefly to the post office, then found myself chatting with some Mormon missionaries at the CVS, for no reason than that they were bright-eyed American kids. No talk about religion--could they smell the superior religion wafting off my holy brow?--just where you from, how long you been here, how are you making out with the language, and so on. I made my purchase and wished them well, reminding them to take care to look both ways when crossing the street. In Korea, it's deadly earnest advice.
Tomorrow early I head off to see Panmunjeom and the Joint Security Area in the DMZ, briefly stroll across the border into North Korea, and catch my first glimpse of the fierce and much-feared KPA soldier. Should be fun.
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