OMF Korea have recently begun publishing books, so we left, after a spot of lunch, laden with books to disperse during our second week. I guess a missionary (and missionary offspring) has a job for life!
We then headed off to Insa-dong for the first of two visits this week. To be honest, one very quick one would have sufficed. I don't remember it from when we lived here but, by all accounts, it was lovely and charming with its fair share of unique and quality shops. These days it's a bit of a den of tackiness and overpriced tat. I'm the kind of tourist who hates to see other tourists, but Insa-dong is not the best place for avoiding other non-natives. Below is a picture of one of Seoul's many Starbucks but I've heard that there are only two in the city with the name written in Hangul. So there you have it - I went to Insa-dong and all I got was a lousy photograph of a Starbucks. Enjoy!
 |
| Note tourists in front of coffee shop spoiling photograph |
An early dinner was next on the menu. I am currently keeping a checklist of things that must be eaten while in Korea. So far we're doing ok, although, much to the surprise of older brother, we had yet to have some mandu (Korean dim-sum). So we stopped in a mandu restaurant where we managed to get on the wrong side of the waitress by wanting to order what seemed to her to be too much food for two people. Then, as she was bringing the food to us I managed to whip round in my chair fast enough to knock two warm bowls of soup over her and on the floor. She was somewhat humourless about the whole thing and was glad to see the back of us when we left. Before that, however, we made sure to clean our plates, you know, to make a point.
The plan was then to wander the streets of Seoul at night. It was lovely and mild, the streets were pleasantly bustly and we had no one we needed to meet and no books to distribute to passers-by.
 |
| The Bigak Pavilion, built to celebrate the 40th anniverary of the coronation of King Gojong (I don't really know who he is - perhaps Wikipedia will know) |
Admiral Yi Sun-sin is a Korean hero, comparable, I suppose, to our Admiral Nelson. He was around in the second half of the sixteenth century and is said to have won every naval battle in which he commanded. Particularly proficient in the use of turtle ships, was Admiral Yi. He is celebrated these days by having purple water sprayed all about him! Actually, the picture does it little justice - it's pretty impressive in person and the Admiral looks suitably majestic.
 |
| The statue of Admiral Yi |
Right next to the statue is the Sejong Center, a concert hall and cultural venue. We decided to pop in to see what the schedule was like this week, as we both quite fancied catching a performance of traditional Korean singing, or pansori as they call it over here. As luck would have it a concert was due to start in ten minutes, so we lined up to buy tickets only for a lovely Korean lady to hand over two spares that she had.
The concert was really awe-inspiring. A musical collective called Seulgidoong were the performers and they were joined by an array of special guests (or we imagine they were special guests to those in the know), including a famous pansori singer who seems to be the country's pre-eminent (the title of this blog post is taken from the inlay card of one of her CDs that we've procured since then. A bit of Engrish for those of you who like that sort of thing!). Evidently the concert was designed to bridge the gap between old and new, including a dance battle between some breakdancers and some impressive pungmul performers. Sounds a little naff perhaps, but it worked brilliantly.
All in all we felt very fortunate to have stumbled across this event - we couldn't have planned it better had we tried.
No comments:
Post a Comment