Seoul: Then and Now

As I was browsing the internet today, I found some very interesting old photos of Seoul in the late 19th century and early 20th century.  There are some familiar scenes and it is interesting to see how different Seoul was then and now. 

This is how Gyeonghoeru (慶會樓) looked like then.  This is the place where the King of Korea hosted his banquets for foreign dignitaries and his ministers and nobles. 

And this is how it looks like today.

Did you spot any difference, other than one photo is in color, whilst the other is in black & white?

This is the pond and pavilion and the bridge in the royal garden.

And how it looks like today.  We know the modern version is just a replica. 

Do you notice the bridge?  They look sooo different.  And further away in the background, there was the pagoda-like structure in the old photo either. 

Sometimes it is interesting to visit our past, although more often than not, some old agony will be dug out as well.  I wonder anyone has the photo showing the Japanese Governor of Korea's House standing right in front of Gyeongbokgung. 

7-Finger Dragons

Korea was a tributary kingdom to China and the country was a kingdom, not an empire; their monarch was a 'King', not an 'Emperor', meaning they were subordinate to the Chinese Emperor.

Chinese emperors used 5-finger dragons as their representation, so Korean kings could only use 3-finger dragons. After Korea became independent from the Qing Dynasty and claimed theirself to be the Empire of Korea, backed by their Japanese masters, the King of Korea became the Emperor of Korea, and he wanted to show that he was even more superior to their former Chinese masters. For that reason, they had 2 7-finger dragons decorating the ceiling of the Geunjeongieon Hall in Gyeongbokgung Palace, the equivalent of the Chinese Hall of Supreme Harmony. 2 more fingers than the Chinese emperor.

However, being sandwiched between military super powers of China & Japan, the Emperor of Korea didn't want to offend the Chinese too much either, so the 2 7-finger dragons are strategically located. If you look from the front of the hall, you won't be able to see the 2 7-finger dragons.

But if you want to the two sides of the hall, then you can see the dragons. If you don't look at them very carefully and actually count the number of fingers, you still won't notice the dragons actually have 7 fingers.

These are what our tour guide told us, how true it is, I don't know. I suppose there is some validity to it. The Geunjeongieon Hall 勤政殿 was actually restored in recent years. When I visited South Korea in 2001, this hall was still wrapped up and under restoration.

There are actually other signs in the Geunjeongieon Hall that tells that Korea was a tributary country to China. Notice the use of red in the hall, instead of yellow? Yellow could only used by Chinese emperors. Another sign is the use of blue tiles in the palace, instead of yellow. Not too difficult to guess the reason, right?

Anyway, we are no longer living in a feudal dynasty. Kings and emperors are no longer important to us, even less important whether the dragon has 5 or 7 fingers. If I like, I can even use 100 fingers, or 1000 fingers dragons for myself, although I am a nobody.

Encounter of a Street Demostration in Seoul

On Labour day itself, we went to visit South Korea's Presidential Palace, and Gyeongbokgung Palace. On the way there, our local tour guide was a bit worried. She noticed some street demostration happening.



We saw many many riot police stationed along the roads leading to the presidential palace. How many? There are a group of two riot police officers every 5 meters! And then there are a group of about 50 riot police stationing every 500-1000 metres. This is probably the place with the most dense population of riot police in the world.

On both sides of the main road, riot police buses line with bumper to bumper along the road. There is no way any vehicle can possibly park or stop at the road side, other than the riot police buses, of course.

The amazing thing is that, although there are so many riot police present in the vicinity, people on the streets still go on their life as usual. Shopping as normal, talking as normal. Everything looks normal. Nobody seems to be bothered by the police presence, other than the curious tourists, like me :)



The riot police officers are most young people around the age of 18-20. South Korean males have to serve either in the police or the army for a certain period of time, as one form of preparation for the potential war with the North.


In the evening, while we were happily shopping at Myungdong, the demostration occurred. We saw flocks of students carrying flags, shouting slogans and walked along the main street. There were many people from the media too. The atmosphere was a bit tense.



Being the first time encountering a real street demostration, in a foreign land, and not knowing what they are demostrating against, I was a bit cautious. I snapped some photos, quickly left the main crowd.

Street demostrations, in my humble opinion, are never truly peaceful. In the labour day demostration, I saw people started to fight. You can hardly tell whether the demostrators were purposely provoked. And then I found that the street demostrators are mostly students too! It is said that before the boys have to serve in the army (after they grauduate from university), they do all kinds of crazy things, including go for demostrations. Then after they start their service in the police, they confront the demostrators. Anyway, interesting life.

At the end, I still don't know what they were demostrating against. Our local guide only told us it was an anti-Lee Myung-bak demostration.

Visit to the DMZ

The visit the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea is quite an experience. It is peace time, yet you still have a certain sense of war.

To visit Mt Dora Observation Platform, we had to first stop at Imjingak station to get our tickets as well as a name list. The rule says that you need at least 30 passengers in the tour bus then you can have your own tour bus going into the restricted area; otherwise, you have to take the bus from Imjingak tourist bureau.

Our local guide was a dare-devil. There were only 26 tourists, plus our local guide, our tour leader and bus driver, then total was still only 29 people. The she borrowed 4 more passports from another group to make it 30.

When our tour bus reached Tongil Brigde (I guess), we were stopped at the sentry point jointly manned by both South Korean & American soldiers. A South Korean soldier boarded the bus, check our passport and count the number of people. Then he discovered the discrepancy in the number of passengers. So? So we were turned back to Imjingak station, and changed to the normal tour bus there.

The bus first brought us through the Tongil Bridge, then passed by the American barracks, then stopped at Mt Dora Observation Platform. We were only given about 20 mins to 'worship' our 'great' North Korea!

The next stop is the 3rd tunnel. In total, South Korea discovered a total of 4 tunnels said to be dug by North Korea for invasion purpose. The 3rd tunnel is the longest, and the only one open to the public.

I walked down the entire length of the tunnel that is opened to the public. The tunnel is wide, around 2m by 2m at the widest, but narrower at some sections. The rock formation along the tunnel is granite, but with water sipping in in some places. I wonder, how much effort the North needed to dig such a big & long tunnel?!

After the 3rd tunnel, we arrived at the north most train station in South Korea, which is the Dorasan Station. The station is said to be built with money donated by the South Korea public. Inside the station, you can buy post cards and have them stamped the Dorasan station stamp, which is said to be 'precious'. And you can also stamp it on the observation page in your passport.

Then that's the end of the DMZ tour. It is quite boring if you have no interest in the Korean war, you have no idea about the those stories associated with the 38 degrees parallel.

If you want to know more, you can visit the DMZ website at http://www.dmz.ne.kr/.

Too bad, most of the places in the DMZ don't allow photography, so no photo to show :)

Dora Observation Platform

Mt Dora Observation Platform is one of the few observation platforms along the 38 degree parallel, which separates the Korea Penisular into two vastly different countries.

On a sunny day, you can see Kaesŏng Industrial Park in North Korea clearly. Unfortunately, my visit was on a rainy day. North Korea is covered by a secret veil of haze. At point A in the photo above, you can see a bit of the buildings in Kaesŏng Industrial Park.

The road that arrow B is pointing at, is the road linking South Korea with Kaesŏng Industrial Park. And North Korea just closed this road, cutting off the link between the two Koreas in protest against the US, and threatened to restart their nuclear program.

Then arrow C is pointing in the direction of where ShangGanLing(上甘岭) is. I met a South Korean soldier who can speak fluent Mandarin Chinese at the platform. He told us that from Dora Observation Platform, you can't really see ShangGanLing(上甘岭), as it is way too far. The tour guides are just bluffing people, especially tourists from China.

As a Chinese, I wonder, China is North Korea's ally in the Korean War, yet now we can only stand on the land of South Korea, once our enemy, to see the battle field where our soldiers died, for the sake of North Korea! Why can't we go directly to North Korea and pay our respects to our heroes there! Seems like Chinese, just like the Americans, are not welcomed by North Korea!

You may wonder why Chinese tourists are so interested in ShangGanLing(上甘岭). Basically the battle there is said to be a great military victory for the Chinese and a battle that the Americans don't want to ever mention again or remember.

You can find some write-ups about the battle (in English, the name is 'the battle of Triangle Hill' or 'Operation Showdown') at the links below:

1. http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A%E7%94%98%E5%B2%AD%E6%88%98%E5%BD%B9
2. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LIY/is_1_90/ai_91914493/pg_2/?tag=content;col1

Teddy Bear Museum in Jeju Island

In Jeju Island in South Korea, there is a Teddy Bear Museum. It has a large collection of teddy bears. There are two galleries, with many different themes.

Being a museum for Teddy Bears, how can it miss out the most expensive Teddy Bear in the world? Yes, this LV Teddy Bear is the world's most expensive piece of Teddy Bear. It will set you back by around 2 billion wons (~S$200K).

In the museum, it is truely a world of Teddy Bears. You see, they even invaded the Qing Emperor's terra cotta's :)

And the 'creation' of Teddy Bear version of Adam ...

And the thinking Teddy Bear...

It is actually quite fun to pay a visit to this museum. It brings you back to your childhood days, with all the cute bears. The museum also has a gift shop, selling everything Teddy Bear. Just for you information, almost all the goods in the gift shop is 'Made in China'.

The museum has a website too, but the last time I tried it didn't work. Anyway, it is: http://www.teddybearmuseum.com/

You can find more information at the following links:

1. http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Travel2/cheju/407

2. http://www.asiarooms.com/travel-guide/south-korea/jeju/jeju-museums/jeju-teddy-bear-museum.html

3. http://asiaenglish.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=313294

Guangzhou Travel (广之旅)

For the South Korea trip, I traveled with Guangzhou Travel (广之旅). Guangzhou Travel, and its South Korea partner - Lotte Travel, are both supposed to be reputable travel companies in their respective countries, and the cost for Guangzhou Travel is much higher than other Chinese travel companies. However, I am actually a bit disappointed with their service, especially when it comes to food.

When I went to South Korea 8 years ago, with a Singapore travel tour, the South Korean tour guide, who was from Lotte Travel too, told us that South Korean food may not be of our taste, but at least we should eat enough rice to make ourselves full. This time round, the food was quite bad overall (except 1 or 2 meals), and in some cases, we didn't even have enough rice! The gingsen chicken and the bibimban are a bit sub-standard too. The fish in the seafood hotpot meal were not fresh.

The reason for such poor food being served has a lot to do with the budget for meals, which is set by Guangzhou Travel. Can you imagine that the budget for breakfast is RMB10/person, lunch/dinner is RMB20/person. Don't you think it is way too low for an expensive country such as South Korea?

Guangzhou Travel's website: http://www.cnto.com/

Tour to South Korea - Part I

Just concluded a trip to South Korea, and back in Guangzhou yesterday. My first trip to South Korea was in 2001, 8 years ago. Some things never change, some change for the best, some change for the worse.

In the coming days, I will write about my trip there with more details.

Overall, it was a pleasant trip. :)