Seoul

Hello! It's bright and early Monday morning - I feel like the weekend ended way too soon. But it was great - my first of many trips to Seoul, the capital city of South Korea.

Sara and I left on Friday evening after school from the Gwangju train station. We splurged a bit and took the KTX express train, as we did not want to drop in on our hosts any later than we had to. The only available train to Seoul left at 7:40 PM, however, so we got into the city around 10:45 and after a series of roundabout subway transfers we made it to our final destination around 11:45. Our final destination was the International Lutheran Church, le

d by Pastor Steve Kosberg. Their house is directly behind and above the church building, as you can see on the right. The Kosbergs are from Mankato, my hometown, and though I didn't know Pastor Steve personally while I was in Mankato, (he was at a different Lutheran church in town than the one I attended, then when my mom and brother switched to his church I was out of state for college) I had been to a Christmas service of his and knew his name. When some of my Mankato friends found out I was headed to South Korea, I was told many times that I should try to get into contact with him, as he had moved to Seoul a little over a year ago to become the head of the ILC. Long story short, my mom got his phone number and then his e-mail address from a connection of hers in Rochester, and when I arrived in Korea two months ago I sent him an e-mail saying I'd love to get together sometime. His reply? He said "Sure, we'd love to have you come visit! In fact, we won't take no for an answer. Oh, and we have an extra guest room so bring a friend. So when are you coming?" His kindness and generosity was overwhelming, and when Sara and I arrived late Friday night he met us at the subway station, walked us to his house, and said that the only rule he and Mary had is for us to make ourselves at home. Done.

Their home reminded us of a cozy lakeside cabin with two stories, a full living room, dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. It was well furnished and felt like it could have been anywhere in the midwest. The house and church had been built in the 1960s or 1970s, I believe, for the nearby American military base. If you are curious to learn more about the church and its history, the link is http://www.ilcseoul.net/.

Our bed was incredibly comfortable, and we were excited at the thought of being able to sleep in a bit on Saturday morning. Our plan for the weekend was simply to get an introduction to Seoul, since we knew we would be back more than once during our time here in Korea. We didn't really have a main objective, other than seeking out the elusive Caribou Coffee we had heard about during our Jeju vacation. Why there were four Caribou Coffee shops in Korea I have no idea, but we were thrilled about them.

However, due to our newly acquired internal teacher clocks, we popped awake around 8 AM, got ourselves ready, and enjoyed a hearty breakfast of peanut butter toast, oatmeal, bananas, and yogurt, all provided by Steve and Mary. To top it off, it was accompanied by classic Folgers drip coffee from a REAL coffeemaker - we were in heaven. We had a leisurely morning chatting with and getting to know Mary, (we hadn't met her the night before) who gave us some recommendations on things to do for the day. On our list was a flea market, a possible short mountain hike, and Itaewon, the famed 'foreigner district' of Seoul.

Around 10 we set off on bus 402 - Mary was kind enough to lead us to the market and show us the ropes. She led us there, orientated us a bit, gave us some more directions to make sure we were lost-proof (map, phone numbers, church card in Korean so that we could show a taxi driver if need be, etc) and then sent us off to explore the market. We had fun wandering the stalls, filled with street food vendors, clothes, shoes, anything you can imagine. We had some fun at the Halloween booth, and picked up some props for the kids next week, as our city doesn't really carry any Halloween merchandise. Korea doesn't celebrate Halloween, but most of the students are aware of it due to the large influx of English teachers, so we figured we could make it fun with some candy and costumes.

After the market we hopped back on the bus to head to City Hall area, but we ended up getting off a stop early at King Sejong Boulevard. King Sejong was an important king during the Joseon Dynasty, (1300 something until the Japanese takeover of 1910) responsible for many civil reforms as well as the head honcho of developing the written Korean alphabet, Hanguel. Due to his belief that education will help the country grow stronger, many illiterate peasants and civilians became literate after the introduction of Hanguel (prior to the alphabet all of their formal documents were written in Chinese); and the Korean drive for education has remained important ever since. Having a written langauge also helped unify Korea as a country when they faced adversity from the Chinese and Japanese. Needless to say, King Sejong is kind of a big deal in Korean history - no wonder he gets his own boulevard, performing arts center, and statue right smack dab in the middle of the city. Here we are with Sejong himself, with the Gyeongbokgung palace (also a big deal in Korean history) right behind him.

After our photo shoot with Sejong (maybe we can call him Sej for short?) we headed towards the palace. There is a distinctive difference between our conception of a palace and Korea's palaces. When we think palace we think of a huge, fancy, ornate building with tons of rooms and halls, but in Korea, a palace is actually more of a huge complex of smaller temple-style buildings, with a throne room temple, a banquet room temple, living quarter temples, etc, all spread out over the walled palace grounds. The picture on the left is of the temple style building dedicated to the banquet hall, and it is on 48 raised pillars in the middle of a pond (I apologize for the uneven photography - not our fault!) It was quite impressive, and it was really neat to see how the old palace (which was actually burned down by the Japanese in the 16th century, then rebuilt during the late 19th century) sits right in front of huge modern skyscrapers, (you can see the contrast in the picture on the right) alternating old and new Korea. The palace complex was purposely built with the Chinese feng shui principles of balance, with mountains surrounding three of its sides for protection, among other features of its planning. I could spit out a lot more history for you, but I'll spare you and suggest you check it out on Wikipedia instead. We spent a good hour or so walking around the enormous palace grounds, taking pictures and enjoying the beautiful fall weather. We even caught the changing of the guards ceremony, which involved lots of guards dressed in brightly colored traditional Korean outfits, flags, some instruments, and drums (what more could you ask for in a ceremony?)

After the palace grounds we wandered around the Jogyesa temple, the most important temple and order in Korean Buddhism, then went to the main city center and Seoul Plaza - full of huge skyscrapers and impressive street views. After a late lunch we subwayed (yes I just made that a verb) over to Itaewon, the foreigner district. Due to the nearby American army base, Itaewon is basically a shopping street with signs in English that I could actually read, (huge shock!) tons of ethnic food restauraunts, and, as luck would have it, an international parade that we happened to stumble upon (pictured.) Our highlights of Itaewon were the foreign food grocery store (it was like Christmas to see familiar food items like oatmeal, Skippy peanut butter, and cake mix) and the new/used English bookstore called What the Book. Not as good as Barnes and Nobles, of course, but the next best thing. I thoroughly enjoyed wandering through stacks of English books! After our purchases, we treated ourselves to a drink at Gecko's Seoul (remember Gecko's on Jeju Island? We found the original Gecko's right on the main street of Itaewon. Win.) Then Mary came and met us where we were treated to a delicious Thai dinner. Mary wanted to meet us there so that she could return home and we could go out on the town after dinner if we felt like it, but Sara and I decided that between choosing to go out and explore the Seoul nightlife or spend the night relaxing in a comfy home, the home won, as it was such a luxury to us.

So, we all headed back to their little home and met Steve, who had been away all day at a church event, then spent a quiet night hanging out in their living room. We had fun exchanging Mankato stories (poor Sara had to settle for watching CNN while we chatted) and trying to figure out who we had in common. To all of my Peterson relatives, you'll be thrilled to find out that Steve spent some of his youth living in Deer Creek - I thought it was funny that he and his friends used to 'go to Henning for fun.' He didn't know any Petersons but he knew the name Amundson...I told him I'd spent nearly every summer of my life in Henning at one point or another, and perhaps my relatives had crossed paths with him at one point.

The next morning we slept in again, then repeated our Saturday morning of breakfast, coffee, and lounging. Steve had two services on Sundays, so we opted to go to the later service at 11:00. It was wonderful to hear an English church service again, and after the service we met some of the Korean congregation (fluent English speakers) and other expats living in Korea due to the military, teaching, or other jobs. After church it was time for Caribou! Sara and I treated Steve and Mary to thank them for their hospitality, and we all enjoyed our Caribou coffees
 and muffins, relishing in the fact that no matter where in the world you were, Caribou would always taste the same. You can take the Minnesotan out of Minnesota, but you can't take the affinity for Caribou Coffee out of the Minnesotan. After Caribou it was time for our departure, so Sara and I headed to the train station, where we caught the KTX back to Gwangju.

Funny enough, even though we were in one of the biggest cities in the world, we actually had a pretty relaxing weekend, which was exactly what we needed. We got a great introduction to Seoul and enjoyed spending time with our fantastic hosts and their 'comfy house.' We are looking forward to returning to Seoul sometime in the near future - Steve and Mary have already invited us up for Christmas. We felt so blessed to stay with them this past weekend, and now, thanks to a couple of e-mails and the willingness of Mankato family and friends to put me in touch with Steve, Sara and I know we always have a welcome place to stay in the heart of Seoul, where a few chocolate chip cookies and brewed coffee will always be waiting for us. And of course, to top of our 'home away from home,' there's always Caribou. Have a great week everyone!