The beaten track

Well, we're new here - so we're still trying out the Ten Top Tourist Trips (or Traps) around Seoul. The Visitors Bureau is promoting Seoul as "a Clean and Attractive Global City," (not as catchy as our home-gu mission statement: "World Best City! World Happiest City!") so their Top Ten doesn't get us down and dirty, but here's some stuff we've done so far (in reverse chronological order due to uploading quirks):Here we are at Namsangol Hanok Villiage. For FREE you can visit 5 furnished traditional houses and learn about crafts, costumes, games, and food and folkways. We enjoyed the purpose-designed baskets like the one on the left just for eggs. Brian learned to roll a hoop and do a bouncy teeter-totter jumping sort of thing, and I got to pose with some fuzzy Traditional Koreans. According to the guide book I would meet people designated as "Seoul Tangible Cultural Property" who would assist me to "enhance understanding of the daily life of the past." These were probably not them.

Trouble is that the village was very hard to find. We thought it was on the top of the mountain - it was at the bottom. There were many finger posts, some in Korean, some in Braille, but only about a third pointed the way to the village, and the directions and distances were pretty random. We saw many things on the way; some nice purple berries, a time capsule designed to be opened 400 years after sealing, a big village complex we thought might be the museum, but was merely a performance space, and many many steep stairways to descend carrying a stroller.

The reason it was a long way down, is because we were a long way up. We started our descent at the top of N Seoul Tower. Panoramic views of the city remind you of just how big Seoul really is. A combination of walking, climbing and cable car got us here, but it turns out the walking and climbing could have been replaced by shuttle bus and inclined railway. We saw more this way though. As they said in Olde Korea "Salted and dried knifefish is good to eat and cheap in price."

Mt. Namsan also has a pleasure ground where you may enjoy sky sculptures, royal guard antics, "unforgettable moment in life" restaurants, souvenir-stands selling angry ethnic baby dolls, and a place where you can leave a lock. We don't know why. I guess when the mullet leaps, the goby leaps too.

Here is Iris, "a springwind to everybody." She is my ticket in, or the red pepper sauce on my lettuce-wrapped rice, the watermelon on my eggplant vine or something. When we crashed (sort of) a BBQ in an upscale neighbourhood teeming with the sailing, shopping, horsey set, although I couldn't speak about the last time I chartered a private yacht for my family vacation, Iris was a hit. She was carried and coddled by the beautiful people and grabbed handfuls of their hair and jewels and got away with it (well, not right out the door and down the mountain, but you know what I mean.) Waitresses hold her while I eat; shop-keepers carry her about while I buy pastries. I can talk to people about Iris, people will forgive my trespasses if I am carrying Iris. People will help me because of Iris. When the batteries on my door-lock went dead and I was locked out of my house with no money/cell phone/ ability to speak Korean or know who my landlord was or what my husband's phone number was - It required only one Iris smile and a driver I found in the parking lot came (with cell phone and Korean language skills) to help me find a way back through my own front door. With a heart like fine brocade, she enjoys everything and everyone, and even when our tourist ways are riddled with potholes and detours - she still makes them fun. Though small, say the Olde Koreans, pepper is hot. Here is one of those 'detours' in the back lanes of Itaewon, where you can get candy, beer, and Ladie's as well as Indian curry, hand-made big and tall suits (Brian was like pine-nut gruel to the street-hawking tailors), and English-language used books. It is very hilly and the winding narrow old streets often open to surprising vistas of new "Clean & Attractive, Global" Seoul down below.

Here is a bridge leading from Global Seoul back home to Seocho (World Happiest City!). Dancing Rainbow Fountain, complete with Disney soundtrack and coloured lights at night, makes our walk home even more spectacular. That's a yellow flood line tracker in the middle right - can't wait for monsoon season! We found a playground on our side of this bridge, so off the beaten track can have some advantages.

Drying peppers, pepper plants, market peppers everywhere we look. There are many sayings about peppers; black pepper is hotter than red pepper, small pepper is hotter than large peppers. Some pepper-maxims involve dogs, sorcerers or daughters-in-law. Some do not. Tiny Jamie, for example, is light enough to swing on a pepper plant and ride on a boat made from a pinenut shell. Keys to Korea (for when your keypad goes blank): bring a baby and understand hot peppers.

Here we are at Children's Grand Park - FREE and on our subway line. The educational aids and activities were all in Korean and it took me about an hour to get there after picking Jamie up from school, but the animals, playgrounds, fountains and shady walking paths were a welcome Wednesday break.

Also they had tiny and big pottys in the cubicles, and many private air-conditioned comfy-couched nursing rooms. For a giant city, Seoul seems to have many child-friendly green spaces - easily accessible and cost-efficient. Both on and off the beaten track we are slowly collecting for our own Top Ten, and even if, as fish out of water, we can't join the seance - we can still watch the sorceress dance and eat the feasting cake. We can paint chrysanthemums on our straw shoes? I'm sure this would make more sense if I actually learned Korean, though according to Olde Korea, "anywhere you live is your native country."

Le choc culturel

Phonetically France, in Korean, is "puh-ran-suh," or prance. Jamie started school at the P-rance hak-yo, the Lycee Francais de Seoul last week, and I have been seeing a new Korea of prancing French women ever since. Some of you are familiar with the very uneasy relationship I have had with the French language ever since I moved to Ottawa and discovered the limitations that my failure to speak French placed on my employment prospects and hopes for monetary gain. Apparently I have decided to compound this by coming all the way to Asia and perversely setting myself and my children up in the one neighbourhood where the only other Westerners hail from France.
This has some advantages; I am surrounded by French pastry shops and have good access to wine and soft cheeses. There are also disadvantages. For example, I live very near a Global Village Centre, designed to help we non-Koreans learn our way around banking, bill-payment, transportation, garbage routes etc. I went to their introduction to new foreigners, only to find it was three hours of lengthy explanations (including bus and walking tours) all in French. I understood very little, despite the fact that I had been provided with my own young Korean girl who kneeled beside me and offered whispered translations from French to English. She held my bag and stroller during the bus and walking portion of the introduction, but I can't really say for certain where I went or what I was supposed to have learned there. I was presented with a very large binder full of important Seoul information, all in French, and I think that my Korean classes that starts next week (as well as my traditional Korean paper crafts class) will be held in French as well.
I have trouble following the parent meetings at Jamie's school (luckily his teacher speaks English to me) and the mothers I see in my morning and afternoon visits to the school merely nod politely at me as they burble to each other about potentially useful things like how strange the principal is, where to find the best housekeeper/nanny combo, and how they manage to be 8 months pregnant and still show up to drop their children off every morning with perfect hair, makeup, and high-heeled-silk-blouse posture. I have tried to make contact with these prancing women. Perhaps pointing out, in broken French, the size and quantity of the earthworms in the gutter, wasn't the right way to begin. Perhaps nursing my crying baby on the steps of their gated garden home as they were introducing their upcoming social events (tennis picnic, champagne brunch, fashion tour, horseback riding spa day?) might not have won me any prance-points. But I have tried to go on their walking tours, I have tried to enter into a shared discussion about the difficulty of moving with kids, sending your first-born off to his first day of school, or learning Korean.
During my twice daily excursions to drop-off and pick up Jamie, I tend to speak to the other two or three English-speaking women who have also decided for various reasons to put their tiny children in an all-French school, and we talk about how we don't know French, while the prance women gaze at us from the corners of their eyes and wonder how we manage to mother two children and still show up to drop our eldest at school looking like we had lost a fight with an angry troll. I wouldn't have thought that my culture shock would come from being surrounded by wealthy French women rather than the fact I now live here in Korea, but c'est la vie I suppose. For Jamie, the culture shock is not so much the French, but the school. Five days a week (half days on Wednesdays) off he goes, stuffed bunny in his school bag, to a world away from his mommy and his baby sister. I don't really know what he does in that world - he plays with a stroller, his frog-teacher (I think she brought in a frog that day) put his slippers in a basket, he used the big boy potty one or five times, he eats egg sprinkles for souper, Mister Xavier (his English teacher) may have sung a song and the words were blah lal la blah like that. Did he watch a show about a turtle? Did he run on the beds at nap-time? Did he read a picture book with a little girl whose name was Cece? He says very little about it, and very little he says makes sense. But off he goes every morning through the gate and out he comes every afternoon wearing the same clothes he went in with. His teacher reports that he is calm, and quiet and doesn't yet join the group, but he doesn't cry and comes when she calls. I guess that's good for now.
He has 177 school days in the year, and has finished 6 already. I cross them off on his calender and try to bear it - but it is very hard for me to be without my tiny boy. He sleeps by himself all though the night, he uses the potty on his own, he tidies up all his toys when he is done with them, and he goes off every day to a world without me. He still won't walk up and down the hills, but he happily lists all the things that "when I am bigger I can do that." I am glad he is getting bigger, and that he is bravely facing all the new challenges in his life, but his mommy might not be ready to be away from him yet. I bring him snacks for the walk home after school; I ignore "don't kiss me mommy" and give him many hugs; I try to arrange fun things for his Wednesday half-days. (Last week the kids and I went to Children's Grand Park for the walks, fountains, playgrounds and free zoo - Jamie "loves penguins, they have no teeth"); I try to remember that this is good for him, and that I get to devote more time to Iris, but I spent almost three years with Jamie by my side and I am not fully prepared to face this new world without him. However, it's important not to lose both the crabs and the crabbing bag, as they said in olde Korea, so Aza Aza Fighting!

Two Weeks In

Yes fellow travellers, we have lived here for two weeks. So, what have I learned? I can shop for food once I locate the grocery store in the underground warren that is its home; I can get in and out of the many gates to my home if I remember my cheat sheet for the number codes; I can sort garbage now that I know the food waste is actually for animal feed and thus can not include tea bags and coffee filters. I can do laundry up to the point where it needs to emerge from the machine dry; I can use almost half of my heating-up implements for cooking, I can work the television but still can't understand what is on. I have a 50% success rate of taking a shower without flooding the bathroom; I have managed to use the intercom to unlock the door about 20% of the time; I have only set off a house alarm once, and it wasn't my house. I have taken cabs and subways but not buses; I have entered a shop alone and made a purchase, but not a restaurant. I have had a number of conversations of all sorts with many people, but they have all been in English. I have tried both Korean and French, but have failed to be understood. I have mastered gesturing and embarrassed smiles.
Last week I managed to procure a neighbourhood map from the community service centre, many glossy books and instruction sheets from the foreigner centre, and photos for foreigner cards. I had one neighbourhood tour, signed up for weekly Korean classes, went to a dinner party, and secured one job offer to teach pre-schoolers English full-time. This last transpired when the babies and I crashed a nursery because we heard English children's voices. I gave the director my contact info, and following what I suppose was a phone interview where she had me admit that it was highly unlikely that I would become a Christian, she tried to hire me for an October start-date. I turned her down, since Iris is still very small, but once she grows it might be nice to try teaching the under 10s for a spell.
And now here are some photos:

Here is the street leading to our subway station. It seems to be pretty complete if you can make out the signs. We have many bakeries selling sort-of French pastries. Our first attempt at buying a chocolatine ended in bean-paste filling and tears, but we did have a cream puff we enjoyed. In the bottom left are two inflatable white people modelling underpants. I have seen these two around Seoul, mostly in underpants, once having the dead skin eaten off their feet by "Dr. Fish."

Here are the children doing their best to make their own fun with no toys at all. They had some Duplo a neighbour lent them, a turquoise quilt that Jamie calls "the sea," a bumbo chair which became a car, some grocery boxes as a train, an egg-carton caterpillar and wooden spoons that served as paddles, drumsticks, and crutches. Our air shipment, consisting almost entirely of toys, arrived on Friday - so now it is only the parents who must make their own fun.

Here is the subway. Seoul Metro is very easy to use and quiet, clean, and civilized despite the large population. There are cheerful cartoons that remind you of dangers and teach you how to behave politely. Whenever I get on with children in tow I am given seats, but possibly only so the grandmas can have closer contact with the babies for further prodding, clucking and gift-giving. Yesterday Jamie scored an adhesive coat-hook with a picture of a puppy and some seafood crisps, and Iris had her photo taken twice.

Here is Dongdaemun fashion market. This section seemed to be entirely fabrics and accessories - a fun-box haven. Those who know me can imagine my delight at seeing stores of nothing but buttons or feathers and having a department store with floor descriptions that read "Fabric . Stuff."

Beneath the market streets is a valley-river walkway from a recovered underground stream that had formerly been paved over. Seoulites were spending quality family time here frolicking and sitting and eating picnic foods entertained by a river-wide PA-system and many waterfalls and fountains. Jamie met a tiny dog the size of a gerbil, and Iris had unlimited access to my hair as she rode around in the Ergo since Jamie wouldn't leave the newly air-shipped umbrella stroller.

We all must put our garbage in special bags. Our household ones can be purchased at convenience stores so they say. They do not contain much, and don't fit in my garbage cans, and the instructions for what constitutes garbage are generally in Korean. Most things are recycled. Here is an old woman pushing cardboard recycling and her male counterpart with his motorized conveyance. Top left is the cardboard recycling depot in Insadong market.

Here is my favorite escalator warning about the risks of heeled shoes. Here are some heeled shoes that are for sale at the bottom of the escalator in my subway station. Here is a lovely young lady wearing said dangerous footwear while at the Seoul aquarium.

Here are the kidlets at the Seoul aquarium. There was a nice glass tunnel that allowed Sharks to swim over your head, and Jamie enjoyed the moving sidewalk. Iris enjoyed pulling my hair and chewing on the straps of her Ergo since Jamie couldn't be convinced to let Iris have a turn in the umbrella stroller.

Here is Insadong market. Many Korean crafts and traditional goods as well as antiques and bookstalls are here. Picturesque back alleys full of old-style restaurants and hourly parades of robed performers coupled with street-food vendors and as-seen-on-TV candy makers add to the festive atmosphere. Here I could buy shoes to let me practice for my bare-foot mountain walks.

Here is Jamie sampling some Korean fare: noodles, sugar strand candy, temple food. He enjoys the many dishes that come to the table and sitting on the floor. He claims he loves spicy lettuce and seaweed and rice, but really only seems to eat the pickles. Iris likes to squirm around on the floor when we are eating - luckily it's pretty clean since everyone removes their shoes before entering the restaurant. We keep ordering the same thing (by accident) however, so today we actually did go to McDonalds to have a bulgogi burger instead.

Here is sweet Iris. She is growing her top two teeth and is very good at squirming around, if not exactly crawling yet. She is loved and admired wherever we go and is constantly having her hands and feet stroked and small clucking noises made at her. Yesterday, when she was finally permitted by her brother to have a turn in the umbrella stroller, this old woman in pink pants came over and strolled away with her for a private chat. Iris is enjoying all the attention so far, and luckily she has Jamie to tell her mother "That lady is strollering Iris away."

At First Glance

So here is a brief (and fuzzy) tour of some of the sites we have discovered in our first weekend here in Seoul.
Here are Jamie and Brian walking up the very steep mountain path at the end of our street. There are many trees and pleasant trails, and at the very summit - yes, it's exercise equipment.
Here are some ajummas exercising in their masks, visors, and patterned leisure pants in the inappropriately named "Grandmother Rest Area."

Here is the Grandfather Rest Area where the old fellows may pick flowers or lift barbells, however they prefer to relax.
Here is one of the barefoot walking trails, complete with diagram of how and why it will invigorate you - I only made it four steps before my shoes went back on. Pain more that relaxation I'd say.

Here we are at our closest shopping: Kim's Club. It is in the bottom of a department store (New Core) and seems to have many things we need. At 12:00 the place filled up with hundreds of young ladies wearing short shirts and white leggings who positioned themselves at the end of every aisle and began encouraging shoppers to sample and buy their particular products. We did pretty well for our first organized grocery shop, but no joy finding frozen vegetables and the corn-on-the-cob we bought proved, once husked, to be white and hard as a rock. We have no idea what it could be for, but it was certainly not food.

Here are some of the well-dressed Seoulites we saw on our palace excursion.

This, by contrast, is how Brian and I were attired. Oh well.

Here is our very extensive underground market where we can remedy our sartorial missteps.

There is English everywhere. Here, for example, beside the "Bagle" store, is a place to buy "Sandwich & Drik," "Fou your happiness."

I am very happy that our Kim's Club has a Beard Papa cream puff outlet and that there is rotating sushi in every department store food court.

Here is some department store food court food in case you were wondering: bibimbop, pork cutlet, and tofu stew set menu for two.
The two department stores nearest us have playrooms on the kid's clothing floor so Jamie sampled them both. There are also mother-and-baby rooms where I can nurse, feed, change, and nap Iris in comfort and pastel privacy with soothing piped-in music. This is Iris in the baby seat in the bathroom stall, included to show that indeed, this city is very child-friendly. Iris caused quite a stir in the Ladies I must say. I know very little Korean, but I am quickly learning "oh so pretty" "So cute" "so fat" and "what a healthy boy." I tried to say she was a girl which caused the women I was speaking to to wiggle an imaginary penis in front of herself and nod. Clearly I must practice describing my children.

Our sixth day in Seoul. We were advised to get out and see the city on our first weekend; we went to Deoksugung, which is the palace nearest my work.

It was not as unbelievably hot and humid as the last few days have been, but we had a number of drinks from the vending machine nonetheless. It turns out that J. likes fruit pop. A lot. The crushed pear beverage is 800 won (less than 75 cents).

We also had lunch at the 11th floor food court of Lotte department store. There are about six Korean restaurants, each specializing in a different type of food. We went to the tofu one.

In Korea, what have we noticed so far? Many things we might have been concerned about (old stereotypes) have yet to materialize. For me, I find it funny to see so many Western fast food chains here. These almost remind one of New Jersey or New York.

But the reality is that Westerners are quite few and far between. English is very little used. So we definitely feel that we are in a different place. And it is true that the kids are a hit wherever they go.

it shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labelled to my will

There are currently 750 items on my household inventory. I have travelled through life thinking of myself as a person who does not acquire possessions - rather I collect experiences, ideas, memories and perhaps even wisdom. Now, after two weeks of counting everything I own, it appears that I do acquire possessions. I have, for example, 28 pairs of socks, 10 winter hats, 71 photo albums and at least 8 enormous bins of craft supplies, fabric scraps and costumes. My personal list includes items labelled "Xena action figures," "Japanese draw-string bags," "box of rocks and shells," "unmade dolls," "Dragon puppet show," and disturbingly, item 723 on the inventory: "17 binders, 2 boxes Aki's unfinished thesis notes." All of these items, with the exception of perhaps the Xena dolls and the rocks, I have decided that I can't live without for the next three years.
Brian, for his part, has invested his identity and leisure dreams in 391 books that he will be shipping to our new home (he consented to leave behind 330), and 196 old academic journals that I can't pry away from him. His personal inventory includes a bongo drum, a bin of lego, and at least 6 boxes I have labelled "personal papers" and am too afraid to open. Most of his own belongings, however are included in the approximately $8000 worth of clothing he has acquired during his working life. This figure interested me, as it was at least 3K more than my own clothing inventory (mostly socks), and over 5K more than Jamie's. My tiny baby daughter, however, not yet 6 months old, has a closet to rival her father's and owns a whopping $6000 worth of clothing. She will wear these items over the next three years, and so far her loving mother has only bought about $20 worth of this enviable wardrobe (thanks friends and family), but the numbers are sobering none-the-less. Her clothes cost twice as much as the children's toys, and almost thrice as much as their books. I anticipate teenage girldom with dread.
Back when I was a historian, I worked extensively with inventories and wills trying to imagine a life from a list of goods and chattels. It was important to me which items were considered significant enough to list, what details significant enough to provide, and how written documents attempted to bequeath stories along with property to particular heirs. If my adult life can be read into these 750 inventory items, would I be satisfied with the interpretation? Can a self-declared non-consumer be understood through her possessions? Experiences, ideas, memories and wisdom have no "replacement value" and are non-insurable, but perhaps I should just be more creative with my notes fields. I should, like Olivia, provide a "divers schedule" of my very being, with "every particle and utensil labelled to my will," supplying both monetary, and personal values. But maybe it's enough to know that I have 28 pairs of socks.

1000 words; No picture

Step One: Passport Photos
Sounds easy, I know - but remember about the 4-month-old and the 30-month old. So, you recall the rules: neutral facial expression (no smiling, mouth closed), face and shoulders centered in the photo, eyes open, nothing breaking-up white, flat background (e.g. chairs, parent’s or child’s hands etc). Recall also that Iris doesn't sit up yet and Jamie doesn't really follow directions.

The girl:
I wish had the outtakes, but you will just have to imagine. I was given a small ripped white pillowcase told to wear it over one arm and position my floppy baby up in front of it directly facing the camera and somehow managing not to have my hand, arms, shirt, or hair visible. The baby was told not to smile and look directly at the lens, eyes wide open, and NOT to suck on her fingers. (oh and no crying) The resulting photos depict me holding Iris like a puppet with left hand, the backdrop draped over my right arm and the rest of me bending sideways as much as possible, head tilted far to the right, looking very worried that I was about to drop my baby face-down on her neutral expression. She took it very well, a natural the camera-guy said, but needless to say quite a great many things were visible in background, including the marks on the tiny white ripped pillowcase. Next Brian tried a variety of contortions involving pieces of printer paper taped to his body and the chair as he tried to hold his daughter with invisible hands. Eventually he held Iris' hands together behind her back to prevent them from entering her mouth, I held up the appallingly inadequate pillowcase, and Brian shot her in the air in front of it and snap - there we were. Baby girl still serene and happy. Good baby.

The boy:
Much much harder. For a two-and-a-half-year-old, sitting still and staring expressionless (mouth closed) at a stranger holding a camera is a Herculean task. The room was soooooo interesting. Aren't you supposed to smile for cameras? What does neutral mean? Serious face? No teeth? Eyes open? The inability to keep eyes open in photos is a genetic propensity in Brian's family that our child seems to have inherited, but I didn't really know that slack-jawed mouth-hanging-open was his relaxed face. We couldn't make him look at the camera. We held all sorts of things up, saying: "look at mommy," "look at the nice man," "look at the picture book," "look - what on earth does Daddy have over there?" We couldn't make him open his eyes or close his mouth and our repeated demands and escalating threats and promises caused him, of course, to screw his eyes shut and open his mouth as wide as possible. Over and over and over and over again we tried to render our lovely, vibrant son adequately expressionless and neutral and still and controlled and he behaved worse and worse, writhing and moaning "no more photos, don't don't do that" all the while trying to keep his eyes closed and his mouth open. After attempt #382 camera-guy sent us away claiming an upcoming appointment. Our one possibly successful shot came while Brian was on one side holding his hands down on the sides of the booster chair and I had just manually closed his mouth. Even after cropping, however, the chair was visible in the background so it may be rejected. Apparently "Passport Canada recognizes the difficulty in obtaining a neutral expression of a newborn and will allow for some tolerance in this regard." Do they realize that pre-schoolers are much much less neutral?

Us:

Nothing much - we've done it before. When they insist on "no glare" I wonder if they count glaring at non-compliant toddlers. We were tired, and man are we ever old. Did I mention we are tired. Too tired to brush hair or shave for photo day apparently.

Tips?

Not really. Drink lots of beer? Practice deep-breathing? Bring a bumbo chair for babies and your own white cloth backdrops. Have toddlers practice making passport faces in the mirror ahead of time. Get it right on the first go to avoid increasing hysteria. Bring a puppet that somehow provokes a neutral but attentive response in your young. Have a professional photographer do it and photoshop out everything that does not look like a passport photo.

So step one on our way to Seoul maybe taken (although photos will likely be retaken).

Only a million miles to go before we sleep.