And finally..or as they say in Korean - majimakero

And so we say.......

My son is not here to correct my spellings or the lay out so if this last section is substandard then he has signed a disclaimer in advance. It is 4.45 a..m. and I think they call it jet lag but I have had enough of lying sleepless in bed. We are at a conference. Terry met us at Gatwick where Tim and I had an emotional farewell (well I was emotional at least!). Never get off an aeroplane after 24 hours of travelling and come straight to a conference of 200 people - unless you can help it of course which I couldn't. It's alright. They are all  missionaries so I'm amongst friends even if I have no idea who they all are! As for Tim, he went off to be welcomed home by just one very special person.

So what of our last day in Seoul?  I went to report the need to mend the broken door and Tim did a little tour of the neighbourhood, This was our nearest restaurant and significant because its speciality dish is ---. I can't even bring myself to say the word and we didn't eat there or I would never have been able to face Rover. But later in the market we did see two skinned and very frozen four legged friends in a freezer! But hey! The lambs in our garden (who have gone back to the farm in my absence but of whom I was very fond) may well end up in a stew somewhere. One cannot be too sentimental unless of course one has a persoanl relationship - like me and Rover

The restaurant

So off we set for one final ride on the metro to an older part of Seoul. We had managed to shake off invitations and were on our own. However the phone continued to ring and there were more people who couldn't believe I was there in Korea and now I was leaving and we hadn't met. I was sorry too, so not too far into the future, we will have to go back.

those chillies get everywhere

And of course so do the churches. The church in Korea continues to grow with mega churches more mega. I did think there seemed to be few smaller churches. When we lived here, theological students had to plant a church as part of their training so you would sometimes get six little churches on different floors of the same building.  I thought there were fewer red  neon crosses at night but maybe that's just because the city has continued to grow at such a pace that the churches have been rather swamped and dwarfed.

a city church?

Being with Tim for two weeks, and he with me, inevitably meant that we discovered significant things about one another and here is one..... the focus should be on the little white van!

Tim's dream car apparently!

This one's for Steve and Liz who both went to Korean kindergarten and can even still sing the song and  still have their little yellow tops and lunch boxes!

kindergarten outing

We weren't just wandering aimlessly. We had a mission! Stainless steel bowls in which to make cold summer noodles or our joint favourite bibimpap!

Korean kitchenware stall

Yes, they knew of the bowls and a woman was dispatched to fetch them. We think she went to buy them from somewhere else but she only charged us what she paid!

waiting for the bowls

As we all know once you have found what you are looking for you find more and more and more....

many many bowls

many many gloves to wash bowls

What is life without kimchi and soon Korean women everywhere will be laying it in for the winter. Tim makes excellent kimchi by the way and so do I even if I do say so myself! It's a very laborious process so many modern Korean women buy it ready made. It accompanies every meal. In the old days the kimchi for the winter was storied in large earthenware pots buried in the garden but if you've been noticing the apartments of Seoul, you will realise that there are no gardens for storage

garlic for kimchi

cabbages for kimchi

red pepper for kimchi

little dried fish and whatnot

paste and red pepper

Tim doesn't eat chicken and I must say seeing all these bits and pieces including piles of feet, and watching them being rapidly dismembered made me want to join him. If you are a vegetarian then wandering through a traditional Korean market is probably not the place for you.

bits of chicken

fish without chips

so you like calamari?

how about seaweed?

soya sauce, oil and red pepper paste

And after all is said and done, and you've eaten all the above and maybe not feeling wonderful, there is always hanyak or Chinese medicine. We found lots of stalls like these with the makings though not the secret recipes. Talking of which when I lived in Korea, I had a spell of cardiac arrhythmia. One morning some friends came with two small boxes in each of which resided a rather large round object wrapped in gold paper which I was assured was edible. These rather marvellous pills were for my heart. When our friends had gone we read the papers accompanying the pills, and discovered that not only were they good for the heart, but for every other ailment known to mankind. We still have the pills which cost a lot of money saving them for when we are about about to pop off. If we have time at that last moment we are each going to swallow one and see what happens!

makings of Chinese medicine

We packed and cleaned and waited for a final visit from a friend who got held up in the traffic so we were late catching the bus to the airport. Our plane flew at midnight and we arrived clutching our final Korean won to spend it on bits and bobs for family and friends but the airport shops shut at ten. Indeed some things we had deliberately left till then which all goes to show! Thwarted at the last, waiting to board the airbus homewards' we ate the very large dumplings (mandu) Dr Kim had thrust into our hands at the bus stop . And so we made our way home, me struggling with a rather heavy cold I might say.

Thanks so much for travelling with us. The number of hits have made the blog worthwhile and gives us a record of a marvellous two weeks back in the Land of the Morning Calm where one Timothy Mark Pye was born on November 25 1978. In the immortal words of both the American General and the Lord Jesus Christ...we will return! To all our Korean friends whose love and generosity and welcome made our time so amazing we say................

 "Tetanhi kamsahamnida. Sarang hamnida. Annyong hi keisipsio. Najungae manapshida"

our last meal in Korea

Penultimate Post

rather a nice pic, don't you think?

It's the end of a very long Sunday here in Seoul and I think we are both just about done if not done in! And still people are ringing up to see if we have time to meet! Answer - a firm no. And we have several bags of presents that need packing and other presents that are not going to be packed but donated. The Korean philosophy of gift giving is that once the gift is given the giver has no more interest in the gift and if the recipient chooses to give it away so be it! Our excuse is that we are only allowed 20 kg of luggage each and I was certainly on the limit coming.
So how did we spend our day? Well, Tim set off on his own to Seonyudo Park, the site of a former water treatment plant on an island in the Han River. It seemed like a good idea at the time. No he enjoyed it - and it was either that or bring his comic books to church!

bamboo growing on island

Mother of course went to church. Actually rather a special church started by the much loved and former leader of Scripture Union in Korea. He had an untimely death while snorkling off the coast of Florida and is hugely mourned and missed. I was surprised at how much I understood and did better than my friend who kept nodding off during the sermon (45 minutes) - she being Korean and all.

Mrs Yune, widow of aforesaid person and Dr Kim

We were whisked off to lunch with the elders of the church and a car was dispatched for Tim, now returned from his outing.  There was to have been a picture of me with the elders but it seems the restaurateur did not push the button for it wasn't there. But a nice lunch all the same. We were joined by Doh Moon Gap and his wife being firm and fast friends from times past.

Doh Moon Gap and Mrs Doh

And so it was that our Sunday was taken over for a whole party of us drove down-town to the palace known as Biwon, meaning Secret Garden, except we couldn't get in to the secret bit. The kings were keepers of courts of order and dignity, with only the king allowed on the raised pathways and the women kept to their own quarters except when summoned by the king. He had a throne and here it is.

throne of king

ceiling of king's throne room for looking at when tired of sitting on throne and lying on back

note centre raised walkway for king only

Mr Doh and Tim discuss plans for political coup

very impressive roof of throne room

quiet corner of palace grounds

Actually Korean palaces are graceful and beautiful and of course we took many more pictures. Hard to know what to include but if any of you have half an hour I am sure either Tim or I would be pleased to show you our extensive collection. We were not the only visitors this Sunday afternoon as the weather was exceptionally lovely and balmy and early autumnal.

visitor to palace with bird's eyer view

We may not have been able to get into the actual Secret Grden but we did have access to a concert of traditional music in the palace grounds. Personally I would have opted for the Secret Garden but ah well, beggars can't be choosers. We found a nice spot on the grass only to be moved on. Then we found another suitable viewing spot only to be hassled away, whereupon our place was taken by others who were not sent off! Tim found a rather large spider in the meantime but deleted the pictures he took of her (Charlotte).

You either like it or you don't and on the whole we didn't but we dutifully sat through the whole performance.

Korean pipe player looking thoughtful

Korean singer getting ready to sing

Korean dancers poised to dance

Well, there are some compensations for being foreign. Here was a bookstall offering free books to foreigners, much to the chagrin of the Koreans who found it discriminatory! We never did find out quite who they were but we do have several free books. They wanted to give Tim a whole set to take back to the British Library but Tim cried off because of the weight. We discovered over supper that there are already over four million foreigners living in Korea. Like UK they need people from Vietnam and China and other parts to do the work young Koreans know longer want to do - the sort that gets your hands dirty! It is predicted that in another 20 years 10% of people living in Korea will be foreigners. This is extraordinary for of all the Asian nations Korea was the most resistant to letting foreigners put their feet on their soil.

purveyor of tradtional Korean culture and values

And so to supper - another buffet and the end of another day. Tim sat with a young Korean couple called Alex and David pictured below - both with excellent English so my boy finally got to have conversation with people his own age. Absolutely modern in every way, they chatted about work and play and possible plastic surgery options (not for Tim I hasten to add) and ambitions of many kinds.

modern Seoul coffee shop

modern Seoul couple - David and Alex Doh

And as I finish this blog at the end of this long day, Tim is contemplating packing and I must do the same. But we do not take off till midnight tomorrow night so who knows, there may be one or two more pictures and we are not going to answer the phone. There are over 60 million mobile phones in Korea - another happy statistic for the Land of Morning Calm.

Talking of Morning Calm, our shower room door can only be opened from the outside requiring two people to be in the flat at the same time. Tim warned me "Be careful Mum" Don't shut the door, I am not going to be here to let you out ... All was well and I remembered but the needed something from the bedroom and yes, I shut the door. It took me ten minutes and near panic to finally barge my way out and the already broken door is now wrecked! Well it is still on its hinges and at least now maybe the owners will do something about it!

A Seoul meander

Early start this morning, places to go, people to see. Thought it be would good to take a picture of the outside of our rather salubrious abode. It's down the alley, what looks like it could be the Black Hole of Seoul. It's strange to see it in the light - we're usually struggling back from dinner with friends, trying to differentiate our very dark alleyway from everyone else's.

Keys are very passé in today's Seoul. It's all about the electronic keypad, which is good because dark alleyways are not the best place to be fumbling around for keys, but it is also bad after a night on the soju (I imagine!) when a combination of clumsy fingers and a fuzzy mind can't seem to recall that memorable six-digit code - especially bad in our situation as there are two keypads blocking our way in.

Mum, pre-soju

The weather today has been perfect: a lovely warm sunshine without a hint of sunstroke. Perfect weather, in fact, for drying some chilli peppers, as our neighbour is demonstrating here (although that is quite clearly a valuable parking space - in London those chillis would have been given a ticket by now).

First thing on the agenda today was a quick meeting with Suyoung, a journalist who works for a magazine here in Seoul. Before coming on holiday Mum wrote an article for said magazine which, aside from a rather major translation error, has been useful in advertising our visit to those people not already in the know. The threatening gesture below is Mum explaining to Suyoung that, yes, they had agreed a rate of £1 per word!

Starbucks - the serious journo's choice of meeting venue

Today's major socialising event took place at lunchtime, when we met up with the Chos. A very charming and generous couple, of whom I have very clear memories from twenty years ago, particularly time spent at Mrs. Cho's dumpling restaurant. Today's lunch did not include dumplings but was a multi-course Korean delight, which, I think, ranks a possible no. 2 in the meals eaten stakes. Maybe a joint no. 2 ... it's too hard to decide!

We then found ourselves in the quite luxurious position of not having any more commitments for the rest of the day. So, an easy-going sight-seeing mosey downtown seemed the perfect thing to do. First point of call, Deoksu-gung, Seoul's smallest palace. Like Wednesday's Buddhist temple, it's a bit of a haven from the bustling city just outside the palace walls. Entrance fee: 50p.

I get a little carried away with taking photos at these old Seoul sights, particularly of the ornate roofs, so will refrain from posting all of them. A selection below:

We spotted this happy couple having their photographs taken on the steps of one of the palace buildings. I assumed that they had recently been married but Mum found out that their wedding isn't for another month or so. I suppose you never know from one day to the next when the sun will be out, so get the wedding photos in while you can!

Seoul seemed to be an especially vibrant hive of activity today. Stages were set up on various street corners and squares, music could be heard floating on the wind from every direction. We spent a few minutes watching a theatrical taekwondo something-or-other: a lot of running, jumping and kicking pieces of wood into bits.

Sorry about the back of heads - hard to get a good photo

At the moment the City Hall is clad head to foot with rows and rows of what look like giant mobile phones showing pictures of Seoulites holding hands.

Mum blending in seamlessly

This is King Sejong, who ruled over Korea at a time of great achievements. He is best known for deciding that all Korean people needed a simple script to represent their spoken language (as opposed to Chinese characters). In 1440 he set up a linguistic committee who eventually came up with hangul, today's Korean alphabet. It is notoriously simple and easy to learn, and is perhaps the world's only methodically and scientifically formulated script in everyday use. The Koreans are so proud of it that they have a national Hangul Day on October 9th.

Sejong's alphabet carved into his plinth

Seoul is surrounded by mountains and today was maybe the first day that we caught a good glimpse of them. Despite how sunny it's been since we arrived there's usually a haze blocking a decent view of the peaks. They looked serene and comfortingly protective this afternoon.

Seoul's mountains behind Gyeongbok-gung, the palace that includes the residence of the President of South Korea

The rest of the evening was spent wandering around town, getting things for people back home and ticking things off our to-do list. First stop, Seoul Selection Bookshop, a brilliant place to find books about Korea written in English, or Korean books translated into English. It also has a pretty impressive DVD selection in which I managed to find a film that I'd been searching for for a few years. Now all I have to do is figure out a away around the DVD Region 3 business!

Last stop of the evening was Itaewon, an old shopping haunt from back in the day. I remember going there to buy computer games with Dad and Steve. Nothing original, you understand: all copies - we were piracy trailblazers! It was a bit of a tacky area back in the 80s, but now it is tenfold. Really not a nice place to spend a long time, so we didn't. We headed back to the comfort of our dark alleyway to eat tteok and drink coffee, Korean style of course.

The post-Chuseok moon over Itaewon

(We've just been sent this picture, taken on Tuesday night - the only one of Mother and Son on holiday)