I got Seoul but I'm not a soldier

(Seoul, South Korea)

Brief though it was, I thoroughly enjoyed my two days in Seoul. This was my first solo adventure in a city where English is mostly unavailable.



My hostel was in a part of Seoul called Daehangno. Armed with fairly detailed instructions from my booking confirmation email, brimming with satisfaction at having made my way into the city exclusively by train, both for the money it saved me and the achievement itself, I rose to street level to bustling late night activity. In front of the metro station there was an improvised food court; a number of tables were laid out with vessels containing various limbs of various sea creatures, with several stations for preparing these alien delicacies, I forget now whether they were vast burbling cauldrons or large wok-like apparatuses; patronised exclusively by locals (well, to my eye).

As I followed my instructions, reliably hitting the landmarks, I noted bars named The Doors, Led Zeppelin and Austin Powers. A twenty foot Gandalf statue stood guard in front of one cafe, "You shall not pass! ...without java and bundt cake." And suddenly my landmarks failed to materialise. A big intersection with a Burger King across the way and "a shop that sells bags" nearby. I did see a Starbucks across the way and a shop (among many) nearby with its garage door shutters closed... Had the mermaid overthrown the king? After briefly doing the lost white boy shuffle, I found the right alleyway and my hostel.

It was a bit of a shock to discover no one is given keys, not to their room, not to the hostel itself, everything is always unlocked. Thankfully there were small lockers where I could secure my laptop and passport and paper tickets (another story, I think I have the last paper tickets on the planet) and other designated irreplaceables, but I decided it would only be good for me to start getting comfortable with the possibility of losing all my belongings. This is not hysteria, it has happened to friends of mine. I will not be careless but I feel I am moving in the direction I want to go, that I feel I could lose everything and things would still turn out okay.

My two days were more realistically one day, and it began with making a few notes on my transit map and just seeing what I could see. I decided to start at the Presidential Palace, but found it utterly surrounded by an utterly inconceivable throng of police and countless armoured busses lining the streets. The police seemed alert but not in the middle of something. I couldn't work out what was happening. The palace turned out to be closed early that day for an inapparent reason. I concluded they were probably related but didn't pursue the mystery further.



From there I walked to an area called Insadong. This is a very well-known pedestrain shopping strip popular with tourists and it seemed locals alike. It had lots of galleries and shops, cafes, culturally relevant artifacts, street food, a few crazies (guy dressed as robot), everything I suppose you might expect. I enjoyed it but didn't see anything I wanted to buy. I had a 15-herb Korean tea with these fluff ball biscuits, billed as traditional Korean cookies, in essence sweet packing peanuts rolled in toasted coconut; quite lovely I must say.

From there I walked in the direction of the Cheonggyecheon; a river that used to run through the city, that fell victim to urban development, that not so long ago was restored, redeveloped and turned into a pleasant if not completely successful get back to nature in the middle of the city affair.



Then I made my way to another palace or temple (some circle I made on my map) and found myself in the middle of an enormous public event of some kind. Again I couldn't quite work out the nature of the happening. Traffic was blocked off, food vendors were everywhere, people were everywhere, I swear there were carnival rides but now I am unsure. Then some sort of protest mob seemed to materialise before my eyes, like clouds of cotton candy spontaneously gathering about the stick, and the people began to march. There was no English signage to help me decode the incident, except the word "NO" in places, and I saw some stars and stripes and some drawings of cows. I had heard in the news (not sure how, maybe at the airport) there was some issue the Koreans were having with beef imported from the US, so I was satisfied I had worked out what the march was about. But this was definitely not the whole story of the enclosing gathering.

Further along the square I saw people with signs to do with Tibet, with a group of demonstrators laying on the ground, with police drama chalk outlines, faces covered for a somber effect. I remembered passing some people in Insadong with Tibetan flags and another street pantomime with soldiers and a hooded victim with something on a sign about North Korean refugees, something critical of China's treatment of them. So China was also on Korea's shitlist that day.

Next I came to a huge gathering, I took to be the ultimate gathering, with music blaring from the main stage, everyone holding signs that bore a number of Korean characters and the word "OUT." I decided this was a political action day, mostly a protest about China's involvement in Tibet, Korea's contribution to the displeasure echoing everywhere in the lead up to the Beijing olympics, and the other demonstrations were offshoots, the natural result of the coming together of so many like-minded politically aware individuals.

Then I got a better look at the stage, the next song started and the crowd cheered loudly. I will not be able to adequately convey the scene. Five musicians dressed in yellow rainjacket hazardous waste Devo outfits with custom instruments hewn from odd post nuclear apocalypse materials, one musician with sousaphonic back-mounted tubes akin to flexible sewer pipes bent around his body with the ends twisted up in front of him to make a toned bass percussion instrument, looking like Madeline half swallowed by an H.R. Giger creation, the others bearing similarly constructed instruments, the central female (looking, from where I stood) performer with a type of xylophone.

Their anthem? Tequila.



All dancing in unison like some cross between Dance Dance Revolution and a Tai Bo class led by The Wiggles, inciting the crowd into happy swaying and the inevitable all together now, "Tequlia!" And I must admit, it just might have been the coolest thing I have seen in a long time.

I got a better look at the signs and saw a photo of a grave looking man in a conservative suit with the red international 'no' circle, like a vast public outcry to who ya gonna call the Bankerbusters or something. I took "OUT" then to be about a politician that had displeased this particular group of Koreans. Perhaps all the issues being presented falling under his influence? Perhaps this while thing connected back to the barricaded palace, but I had not the communication skills to investigate.

And I found the whole unintelligible adventure strangely and incredibly satisfying, I absolutely adored not having a clue what was happening.