Seoul Fortress

There are a million things I want to do in Korea, so trying to decide which to do first is a challenge.  I decided to hike up to Seoul Fortress last Thursday because the weather was great and the leaves are all changing color here.  The weather in Seoul is very similar to the weather in the DC area.  It's definitely turning cold here, but every once in a while we get a mildly warm day.  Thursday was one of those days so it was a perfect day for a hike.

To get to Seoul Fortress, I had to take a subway to Anguk and then hop on the #3 green bus to Sungkyunkwan University.  I have no problem with taking the train anywhere in Seoul.  The buses make me a little more nervous, though, only because I have to be able to hear my stop.  On the subway there are giant screens that tell you the upcoming stop along with a voice announcing the station name.  You can read your stop on the TV, hear the stop, then watch the subway wall as you enter the station where the stop name is plastered all over the wall.  You are guaranteed to know when you need to get off.  Buses, however, are a little more difficult.  There are ten million stops and the only way you know which one you're on is to listen.  There's no sign to tell you when you're there, and the bus drivers don't talk nice and slowly for foreigners like the pre-recorded voices on the subway.  

So I figured I was up for the adventure of a bus ride and decided what's the worst that could happen.  So I might spend the entire day riding the bus instead of hiking to Seoul Fortress.  Either way it would be a fun day in Seoul!  

So off I went.  After coming out of the subway station I found the #3 bus okay and asked the driver when I got on if the bus was going in the direction I wanted.  Of course the drivers rarely speak English, so really what this sounded like was me saying in Korean, "Sungkyunkwan?"  (The name of my stop phrased like a question.)  He nodded so I figured I was on the right bus.  The next hurdle was getting off!  Having no idea what my stop was going to look like, I listened intently to every word spoken.  The only ones I recognized were the ones I needed, thank heavens, but unfortunately for me, there were two at the University and I had no idea how to say "rear entrance" in Korean.  I guessed,  and unfortunately for me I was wrong.  This is the hill I had to climb to make up for missing my stop.  Oops! Oh well, at least I only missed it by one stop.  

Finally I was on the path to the Tower.  There was a beautiful boardwalk built that lead the way from the University to the nearby park where my trail-head was.  

The views of the city were amazing from here.  In fact, there were little workout stations along the way where you could exercise while enjoying the view.  Great idea!  This is much better than trying to read subtitles on the TV screens at the gym.  Here's a lady on a little self powered elliptical machine.  

 And here's another larger "gym" farther up the mountain.

Seriously, why haven't we thought of this in the States!?!

Finally I reached the trail-head.  Here's a map of the different hiking areas in the park. 

 I was headed to the Fortress Wall of Mt. Bugaksan.  In the late 1300s, King Taejo founded the Joseon Kingdom.  He decided to build a new capital for his dynasty.  The palace I visited last month, Gyeongbukgung Palace, was the home he built for himself.  As a security measure, he decided to have a fortress wall constructed around the newly built capital city.  Amazingly, a majority of the work was completed in just 49 days.  Wow.  So today, portions of the wall still stand, and are open to hikers.

The wall was restored several times under different kings.  You can see how different the stones were in the different eras.  

Before I could actually go inside the fortress wall I had to fill out an application and register myself along with my passport.  

Along with the palaces inside the fortress wall is also modern day South Korea's Blue House -- the President's house.  In the late 1960s, a group of North Korean invaders scaled the wall and attempted to murder the South Korean President.  Because of this, the entire fortress wall was closed to the public until around 2007.  Now, in an effort to keep the area secure, they require all hikers to register themselves and receive a badge before hiking this area.  Pictures are also very limited.  There are only a few spots where you're allowed to photograph.  I'll post what I could take, but the best views, unfortunately, I can't share.  If you ever get to Korea, I highly recommend doing this.  It was amazing.

Here are a few of the pictures I was allowed to take.  

This is one of the gates that would lead into the city years ago.

This is Chotdaebawi.  When the Japanese invaded Korea, they attempted to kill the Korean's National Spirit.  They burned and destroyed many things sacred to the Koreans, one was this rock.  They drove an iron wedge into it.  It is still there today.  You can see it in the distance.  It always amazes me how ugly war can be. 

This is the area where the North Koreans invaded.  There are still bullet holes in the tree from the battle that took place here between the North and the South.  Just on the other side of this ridge is the President's home.  Crazy that this just happened in the late '60s.  

Here's a view from the top of the mountain.  I found some nice person to take my picture.  Again, the best views I wasn't allowed to photograph.  I wish I could show how amazing it really was.  

The fortress wall goes on for several more miles.  You can see it scaling the mountain here in the distance.  (It's the little white line just off to the right of center on the mountain.)  This wasn't an easy hike.  The mountains here get incredibly steep and you just go straight up with it.  I'm amazed they were able to build this wall on such steep terrain, especially in 49 days.  

This was the end of my hike.  I ended at the Changuimun gate in a cute little town called Buam-dong.  

What an amazing day.  I had a great hike, I used my Korean once when I asked a guard, "What is that?" in Korean, and I also made a friend.  As I was trying to find the bus stop back to the subway a nice Korean lady asked in English if she could help me.  We talked for a long time, and come to find out, she's new to the area and was looking for a hiking buddy.  We're going to hike to a "holy place" as she called it next week.  I can practice my Korean while she practices her English.  I can't wait!

Happy October 27th

Happy October 27th...also known as Happy Halloween here in Korea.  The base celebrated Halloween on Saturday evening instead of October 31st.  The kids were a little disappointed that it wasn't on the real Halloween, but I was pretty excited.  I really detest the late night on a school night.  It's probably the teacher in me.

So here are the kids in their Halloween costumes.

I love how each kid's personality shows through in his/her costume.  Ali is all about the scare factor.  Ryan loves to be silly.  And Emma, what more can I say...she's our little princess in every way.

Unfortunately for us, October 27th was a rainy night.  Also unfortunate, we made Ryan's costume out of cardboard and posterboard.  Rain and paper products don't really go well together.  Because of this, we decided to trick-or-treat in the indoor apartments on post.

You can't tell from the few pictures we took, but people there really went all out with their Halloween decorations.  I was impressed.

It didn't take long to run through the 50 or so apartments there, and the kids wanted more candy.  So we ventured out into the rain.  We didn't get a lot of pictures from here on out because the weather was so nasty but we did get a few.

What I really wish we had gotten pictures of, though, were some of the Korean trick-or-treaters.  Halloween isn't celebrated in Korea.  Many of the local kids want to experience this American holiday (who wouldn't with the amount of free candy involved!), so they come onto post to trick-or-treat.  Several weren't told about the costumes though.  It's quite fun to see these kids in street clothes knocking on doors saying, "Trick or Treat" in their best English.  It's neat to be able to share this holiday with these children.

The kids got mostly your normal candy of Hershey bars and Sweet Tarts, but there were a few foreign treats thrown in.  Here were a few of them.

While Emma wasn't interested in trying them, the rest of us did.  We didn't get a picture of our favorite one.  It was a Korean version of a Moon Pie.  Yummy!

On October 31st one of the neighborhoods here on post had a Halloween costume potluck dinner.  One family we've met so far was nice enough to invite us.  The kids got to dress up again and have a great time playing games and running around.

We felt a little bad as everyone welcomed us to the neighborhood and we had to explain we didn't live there -- we were just crashing their party!  They were all great about it.  We hope we end up with a house in that neighborhood.  :)

Military Life

Sometimes I look at my life and it makes me smile because it's absolutely nothing like I thought it would be when I was a kid.  I lived in the same house my entire life until college.  I never switched schools.  I can't remember anyone in my neighborhood moving away.  Sure, there were a few folks here and there that came and went when I was a kid, but I really can't think of any in particular.  I didn't have to make new friends; my friends were always there.  And as a child, I remember my two biggest fears.  The first was my house burning down.  (I think there were one too many "Stop, Drop, and Roll" campaigns in my school.)  The other was moving.  The thought terrified me.  It was second only to burning to death.  So the fact that I'm an Air Force wife now makes me laugh.  In fact, when Peter and I were friends in college and I heard he joined the Air Force Officer Training Program, I told him I felt sorry for whoever he married.  Spending my entire life moving, even as a college student, was not appealing.  But life is what you make it.  One of my favorite movies is Groundhogs Day with Bill Murray -- the one where he has to live the same day over and over and over again.  In the beginning it was miserable, but by the end he had found a way to love his life.  I think the military has been a little like that for me.  So for those of you who aren't military, and maybe even for some who are, here are a few of the things that have made me laugh about military life since we've moved to Korea.

1.  All the exercises on base.  It's been almost 7 years since we've lived on a military installation.  I kind of forgot what it's like.  It's so different from a normal neighborhood.  You are constantly reminded where you live.  Just the other day I heard what sounded like gun shots outside the hotel window.  I looked out my window to find this:

So these aren't the greatest pictures because I took them on my cell phone camera out the hotel room window, but there was a mock terrorist attack happening on the children's playground at the hotel.  They had paintball guns and I'm not sure if those were gas masks or ski masks, but either way, pretty scary to look out your window and find this on your playground if you're a kid.  Could you imagine this happening at your neighborhood park?  It made me laugh.

2.  Running on base.  What's so funny about running on base you ask?  Well, you have to wear a reflective belt or vest when you run-- anytime of the day.  Seriously!?!  That was my first question.  I'm not sure what I'm reflecting during the day, because it can't be the car lights that are turned off.  

3.  Family Gas Masks.  We haven't been fitted for these yet, but we're going to be.  

4.  Military Commercials.  We only get a few channels in English here.  The ones we have don't have your normal commercials advertising things you might want to buy.  Instead we get public safety commercials about how to stay "Army Strong.".  Since living here I've now been educated on the proper way to walk across a crosswalk, the proper shoes to wear so as not to slip, the correct attire for riding a motorcycle, and my personal favorite, not to send your kids to school with drawstring pants because they might get caught in the playground equipment.  I'm not sure how I've managed to keep our family safe all these years on my own. 

Living life in the military is truly a different world, one that I wasn't looking for, but am so glad I have.  I think my absolute favorite part, however, is all the friends we've gained from each duty station.  Whether we've lived somewhere for 3 years or just 9 months, we've made the most amazing friends.  And while I absolutely hate leaving every time, I can't imagine not living in any of the places we've been and not meeting the people who are there.  What a blessing it's been to our family to have all of you in our lives. I guess I can even tolerate running in a reflective belt for that.  

Lost in Translation

We walked by this sign the other day in Seoul and it made us smile.  Glad to know they're offering interracial marriage, but I'm not sure I'll go here for translation services.  :)

By no means am I judging, though, because I can only imagine the number of laughs I'm creating as I try to speak Korean.  

Eating Dinner, Korean Style

After our DMZ tour Saturday, we headed out for some good old Korean Barbecue.  Yum!  We headed to a little place in Itaewon.  

The fun part about Korean Barbecue is they cook the meat right in front of you.  You can see the silver looking platter near Ali.  That's the grill.  Our waitress cooked it here while we watched.  

While the meat was cooking they brought out about a million side dishes.  Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating, but it was a lot.  You can see them here on the table.  We weren't sure what everything was so we had to ask our waitress.  She was very patient with the Americans!  Moving across the picture below from left to right was:  onions, kimchi, mussels, steak, eggs, salad with a strawberry jam dressing, and lettuce leaves.  There was also a pumpkin dish you can't see in the picture.  It was quite the variety of foods.

Our waitress showed us the proper way to eat.  You use the lettuce like a tortilla and build yourself a little meat burrito by adding some rice, the red sauce in the picture above, onions, and meat.  Delicious!    

Here's Emma making me another "burrito."  I'm sure there's a Korean name for this, but I don't know what it is.  I do, however, know how to say in Korean, "The girl eats rice" (thanks to Rosetta Stone) which was appropriate for Emma here.  That's all she ate.  She was afraid of everything else on the table.  While she loved making lettuce rolls for everyone else, she didn't love eating here.  I'm thinking these meals may be for date nights and not family nights.  

After we ate they brought lollipops for the kids.  Emma got two.  

After a meal of nothing but rice, she was pretty happy...and the rest of us were stuffed.  Loved this Korean dinner.  

DMZ Tour

Saturday, we took a tour of the DMZ.  The DMZ is the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.  Before WWII, Korea was under Japanese control.  After Japan's defeat at the end of WWII, the US and Russia divided Korea into two countries.  North Korea became communist with Russia, and South Korea was free with the United States.  The border between the two countries was fought over for three years (the Korean War) and finally settled upon back where it started -- which is the 38th parallel or Demarcation Line.  After the Korean War, each country moved its armies 2km from the actual border line, and this "buffer zone" between the two countries became the Demilitarized Zone, aka DMZ.  Here's a map to give you a better idea:

You can see how close Seoul is to the DMZ.  We didn't have far to drive on our tour to get there.  Our first stop was on the South Korean border outside the Demilitarized Zone.  It's a town called Imjingak.  The kids loved this little South Korean soldier statue.

We walked out onto the Freedom Bridge.  This was the bridge built to exchange prisoners of war after the Korean War ended.  More than 12,000 prisoners were exchanged.  The bridge is no longer in use.  This was as far as we could go.

While we were walking on the bridge, this man fell in love with Emma.  Suddenly he was holding her hand to have his friend take a picture.  I'm not sure how many his friend took; it was a lot. 

Then before we knew it, he was holding Emma for more pictures.  Our tour was on a very rigid time schedule.  He took so many pictures, we weren't sure if we would get back in time! I had to take pictures of them taking pictures, because it's still so funny to me.

Next we stopped at a permanent altar built here in Imjingak. 

This was such a sad place for me.  It really hit home how torn apart the people of Korea really are.  This is an area where South Koreans come every year to mourn those loved ones, both living and dead, that remain in North Korea.  They picked this place because it was as close as they could get to their homes and loved ones across the border.  Finally, the South Korean government built a permanent altar for the people. Again I thought of Jake.  It was a difficult thing for me to leave his grave in DC when we moved here.  For me though, I can always return and visit.  My heart went out to those people who can never return to their loved ones burial sites because of a government in the North that is so selfish.

Next, we headed into the DMZ.  Any vehicle passing through needs to have permission to enter, so you get stopped here by these border guards.  

There were some interesting pieces of art at our next stop. 

I loved this one.  The people on the outsides are pushing the two Koreas back together.  The insides of the fractured sphere have the maps of both countries.  I loved the symbolism.

Unfortunately these were the only pictures we could take at the 3rd tunnel.  This is the place where the South discovered tunnels the North was digging to invade.  As the name suggests, this isn't the first tunnel they found.  There have been four found, the last as late as the 90s, and they are sure there are many more undiscovered.  We were allowed to walk down in to the 3rd tunnel.  Every once in a while I'm reminded of how much taller I am than the average Korean.  This was one of those times.  The tunnel was created so several thousand North Koreans could travel quickly through.  Tall foreigners, not so much.  We were given hard hats to wear, and at first, I thought that was a bit excessive.  I mean, who really hits their head in places like this, right?  I couldn't believe how many loud bonking noises I heard in the tunnel from all the tall tourists hitting their hard hats on the low ceiling.  It was actually quite comical.  I'm glad I did this tour, but I was also glad it was over.  It was a really long walk, crouching the entire time.

The other thing that made me shake my head on the tour, was the great lengths to which the North Koreans will lie.  In an effort to cover their tracks while making the tunnels, just in case they were found, they painted them with black coal dust.  After the South discovered them, the North claimed they were mining for coal, not trying to invade the South.  Why then had they dug them into South Korea?  Why is there absolutely no coal in this area what so ever?  I'm ever impressed with the North's ability to lie.  Here's another example.  This is the Dora Observatory.  It has the best view from the South into the North.  From here you can look through binoculars to get a better view.

Unfortunately, you're only allowed to take pictures from behind a line quite a distance from the balcony.  These were the best pictures I could get.  (I found a better one on the internet that I included.)  This is what is called the Propaganda City.  

The North built it near the border to show the South how prosperous it is.  When it was built, this was the tallest flag pole in the world.  Next to it is a statue dedicated to Kim Il Sung, the "Dear Leader."  It is one of 25,000 statues built in the North to honor Kim Il Sung.  The reason this is the Propaganda City, however, is because these building are only shells.  The insides were never completed.  It's sad to see how the North chooses to spend its money.  Rather than feeding its people, it spends thousands of dollars to keep up a facade of wealth.  Great choice.

Our final stop was Dorasan Station.   This train station was built to connect to all the railway in the North as a gesture of peace.  Unfortunately for South Korea, while they are situated on a peninsula, it might as well be an island.  They are blocked off from the rest of the world by a crazy leader to the north.  In order to travel outside the country, it must be by airplane.  If the two countries were reunited, however, one could travel all the way to Europe from this train station.

 We took a picture with a South Korean guard.

While at the train station we stopped to use the bathroom.  I've never seen this before so had to take a picture.  When you go into the stall and lock the door, the word occupied lights up in three different languages on this little picture on the stall door.  So fun!

That was the end of our tour.  I think the biggest ah-ha moment for me was how much our country has helped South Korea.  For me, growing up in the US, I was always taught that the Korean War was a failed war.  One that accomplished very little.  Living here in Korea now, though, I can see how much we did for the South Koreans.  The South is so prosperous.  There is freedom here.  I'm not trying to claim I know everything about war and whether or not thousands of lives should have been lost during the war, but looking into North Korea and thinking about all the people starving and trying to just survive day to day, I hate to think of what life would be like here in the South had our country not fought to stop the Communist invasion.

Don't Pinch Me

So the past couple of days I spent grocery shopping and doing laundry.  (Unfortunately those things need to be done in Korea too.)  But since my chores were done today, I decided to spend the day playing in Seoul.  I headed north this time to Gyeongbokgung Palace and Bukchon Hanok Village.  I took the subway to the Gyeongbokgung Station and this is the view I got when I walked out.

Wow.  Honestly, I can't believe that I live here.  I keep waiting for someone to pinch me and wake me up from this amazing dream.  It is truly surreal seeing all of this history in real life.  This is Gyeongbokgung Palace.  It was the royal palace for the Joseon Dynasty.  This palace was originally built in 1395.  Unfortunately it was burned down during the Japanese invasion in the 1500s.  It has since been rebuilt.  I had the cutest English speaking Korean tour guide.  She was fabulous.  

She took my tour group all around the palace grounds and gave us the history behind the palace.  This is the Throne Hall where the king greeted any visitors or gave important declarations.  

 Here is the King's throne inside.  The five mountains symbolize the five major mountains of Korea.  As the tour guide explained, all five were part of the kingdom during the Joseon Dynasty.  Now only two belong to South Korea.  The other three are in the north.  (I'm sure I heard some sadness in the tour guide's voice as she said this.)

This is the pavilion where banquets would be held.  Everything in this palace represents the Yin & Yang (opposites that are interconnected).  This building shows the opposites between Earth and Sky.  You'll notice the pavilion is built in the shape of a square to symbolize the Earth while the pillars inside are cylindrical symbolizing the Sky.   

There are so many other fascinating things from this tour I could blog about, but it would take all night.  I find that I'm taking WAY too many pictures these days too.  For my mother who reads this blog, I'm turning into you!  Here are just a few others that I took here.

After the palace I headed to Bukchon Hanok Village.  This is an area of traditional Korean houses called "hanok."  They too date back to the Joseon dynasty, but unlike the Palace, these are original houses.  There are some that are tourist attractions, but most of the ones I photographed today are residential houses.  They're beautiful.  

It is so amazing to step back in time in this little village, yet to be reminded of the very modern city just in the distance.  This is truly one of the coolest places I've been.  You'll notice two of the school girls in my picture above.  There were several school trips here today.  They were hysterical.  Everywhere I went they would ask me if I would take a picture with them.  I'm used to this happening with the kids, but not with me. I don't know how many picture books I'm going to be in.  Maybe I should start charging.  :)

That's all I could squeeze in before needing to take the subway back to pick the kiddos up from school.  What a day.  If I'm dreaming, don't pinch me, because I'm not ready to wake up yet!