Seoul: A city without a sense of history

Post date: Oct 02, 2016 8:13:42 PM

After Beijing I went to Korea, where my friend Laura was living for a year teaching english. Laura and I have known each other since we were kids and this is one of many overseas meetups.

We went to the aquarium, one of my favorite in the world.

We also climbed to the top of the Seoul tower to see the city. They had this amazing art piece that still stands out in my mind today:

And we went to a jimjilbaum. It's like an adult playland, with massages, saunas, and hot tubs. After hours of sitting in lovely saunas, and hot and cool pools Laura and I opted for the full body scrub. We both laid down on massage tables, totally naked. Two old Korean ladies not wearing any clothes came over and gave us a scrub down. Laura’s looked at her and smiled. But I had been traveling for 6 weeks, and I don’t take care of my body in the best of times. So my old lady looked at me, grimaced, and got down to work. She scrubbed parts of me I never even knew could be scrubbed. I was a new woman when she was finished.

We went and did “Dr. Fish” in which fish eat the dead cells off your feet (it was a feeding frenzy).

I love a city where a random brass band is playing in the subway.

One afternoon when Laura was teaching I went on a Lonely Planet hike by myself. Walking along this trail I came around the corner and ran into a naked man hiking. When he saw me he immediately covered his nipples (I have no idea why). Apparently I had come to the temple the one hour per week that is "Naked men praying time". I was quickly rushed off the mountain…

I went to the royal palaces. Or the remake of the royal palaces would be more accurate. You see, Korea has been invaded, and smashed, and rebuilt so many times, that everything is new. The whole city has essentially been reborn repeatedly. So the palace was actually made of concrete, and put together recently to try to mimic what was there before the last time it was invaded. It is a city entirely without a sense of deep rooted culture.

Even the gardens are recent.

Finally, on one of my days wandering around alone I found the fish market. It was awesome mostly for the surprising sights and smells. I had trouble picking my favorite photo, but the absurdity of this octopus won.

Finally, I saw this sign. To this day I have no idea what it means… No. a. Clue.