Monthly Archives: April 2013

Ulan Ude to Irkutsk: Still in Eastern Siberia

My trip from Ulan Ude to Irkutsk was only about eight hours long, all daylight, going by Lake Baikal and what is probably the most scenic section of the entire trip.

I don’t know what it was – possibly the human contact that I’d enjoyed over the prior 24 hours – but pretty much everything went smoothly and I was back to enjoying my trip thoroughly.

My compartment- mate was again an older lady, one who seemed to be moving her household and a small garden. I walked in to see a host of green cuttings and various plants (I recognized the African violets!) on the table between the beds. It was lush and welcoming. Then I realized that there were also plants up in the upper bunk luggage compartment, along with bags there and under both her and my bunk. Luckily my backpack fit in the little remaining space.

This nice lady only spoke Russian, but unlike some of the others, she didn’t let this deter her, and she continued chatting away to me in Russian, some of which I understood.

She was doing embroidery and I noticed a lovely crocheted or knitted shawl on her bunk, so I asked her (trying to sign knitting) whether she had made it. She hadn’t, but she did show me her knitting project and then showed me photos of her other impressive projects. It was entertaining to see her scroll through photos, because she had to use the side of her finger due to her long artificial nails. Apparently Russian women take their nails seriously! (I heard it said that a Russian bride will match her groom’s tie to her nail polish.)

The scenery was gorgeous as advertised, especially once we got mountain scenery and not just the lake. Without the mountains, the lake is a white expanse of frozen water as far as the eye can see, not terribly exciting. Along the edge of lake were chunks of ice, some wrapped in a blanket of snow looking like little igloos. Then we hit the area with mountains and it was almost like being in Switzerland (though the mountains aren’t as tall). It was breathtaking. Unfortunately, after half an hour of staring at gorgeous mountains, I drifted off. (Remember, no guilt on this trip, and no sleep in hostels either.)

I arrived at the Irkutsk train station and easily found the bus one of the American students had mentioned. I took it for two stops, got off, and found my hotel right across the street. Finally, a painless arrival in a Russian city! I was staying at the Courtyard Marriott, and while in some ways I feel like a spoiled American (it could have been in any US city, no Russian atmosphere at all), I reveled in it. I had American style service (helpful, in English, with a smile), a large comfy bed, no roommates, and my own bathroom! Oh yes, and a toilet I could flush. After the train and the hostel, it was amazing to get good nights’ sleep for the four nights I was there.

Buddhism in Siberia: the Ivolginsky Datsan

I was awakened around 6 by a flurry of activity as a bunch of people came to the hostel and crashed. When I got up some time later, I found that two groups of young American college students who studied Russian in Irkutsk had arrived. Over breakfast, I had a great conversation about science and grad school with one of them who was excited to hear I had just left Madison as he is from Wisconsin. He’s an interesting kid – I think he’ll do well.

Since his group planned to go to the Datsan, the center of Russian Buddhism, and that had been my plan as well, I asked if I could join them. It would be a relief to spend a day with people who spoke both Russian and English – in many ways I had had a rough time in Russia up to this point because of the language barrier, the isolation, and the perpetually getting lost on arriving in a city.

I spent the morning and afternoon with them, getting to the Datsan by a strange series of events that will happen when there is a group of 7 people. (They needed to get tickets to go to Ulan Bator in Mongolia but they were sold out, so I awkwardly tagged along as they worked out their plans. I’d have gone to the Datsan by myself but at this point they felt bad for having dragged me around and insisted I come with them.)

Eventually they worked out their plans and I joined them in a van heading about an hour out of the city. We headed out across the plain, towards the mountains. After our drive, we found ourselves outside a fenced enclosure. I popped into a yurt to buy a photography pass, and we headed inside, our guide (the hostel owner) explaining that we needed to go in a clockwise manner to be respectful of Buddhist practice. We walked around the complex, catching a glimpse of birch trees hung with prayer flags outside, turning prayer wheels, entering a few of the shrines. It was interesting but odd to see this complex in the heart of Siberia.

We saw a couple of adorably chubby puppies. The American girls commented on how cute they were while our guide chuckled. With all the stray dogs, I have to wonder whether people here keep dogs as pets, at least in an area like Ulan Ude.

I spent the evening by myself, having bought what I hoped were Buryat dumplings called pozhi but turned out to be Russian dumplings called pelmeni. Oh well, they were tasty.

I’d really appreciated the chance to speak English with the college group, and I was equally glad when they finally left early the next morning, after an hour and a half of blaring alarms and noisy packing. I spent a quiet morning chatting in French with three older French ladies who had arrived the night before and who invited me to join them. Had I not been heading out that morning, I would have taken them up on their offer.

As it was, I headed out to the train station, back under the underpass without mishap. I had scoped out the “faster” route the day before, which involved the highest overpass I’ve ever seen. I believe that I’ve mentioned not being a huge fan of heights. Well, picture a high overpass over the road, that then climbs a story over the railroad tracks, and combine it with the poorly maintained infrastructure so that there are holes in the concrete you can look through, and you can see why I didn’t go back that way. I went a different,abbreviated route (abreviated compared to getting lost on arrival anyway), and was thrilled not to get lost again.

Adventure Is a Euphemism for Getting Lost

Never have I felt such joy in beholding Lenin’s face.

Let me explain, lest you think me now a supporter of the Communist Party. Rewind by an hour or two and you see me getting off the Trans-Siberian in Ulan Ude. We had pulled into track 3 or 4, and as I looked about for a way to get to the station, I noticed that everyone, babushkas and passengers laden with many bags included, were just walking over tracks 1 and 2. I resolved to follow them, despite the fact that the tracks were covered by a thick layer of ice and I am a little top heavy when carrying my backpack.

I made it across, exited, and dodged the taxi drivers to start out for my hostel, located near Soviet Square and the Lenin head (the biggest one in Russia). Unlike for my arrival in Vladivostok, I had prepared for my arrival in Ulan Ude by examining the map in my guidebook and actually leaving my guidebook accessible. I set out walking in the general direction of my hostel based on the map. I walked for a way and realized that none of the street names were on the map. I passed a dead dog on the side of the street and was walking over sheets of ice or mud covering whatever sidewalk there was. The state of the infrastructure was in stark contrast to the nice clothes people (especially the young women) were wearing. They managed walking in heels on ice very well! What also threw me a little while I was walking along was the large number of Buryat, an ethnic group in the area who resemble Mongols. (Ulan Ude is the capital of Buryatia). What was strange was that their native language is Russian but since I’d recently been in Japan and Korea, I expected the Buryat to speak an Asian language.

I tried to stop a person or two to ask for directions but they shied away – I suppose I looked pretty wild-eyed. Finally an older lady stopped long enough to point me in the right direction. Actually, I’m pretty sure she was telling me to take the tram but there was no way I was going to let myself get as lost as quickly as you can by vehicle!

I walked…and I walked. I was worried the lady hadn’t understood my request as I still wasn’t seeing the big head of Lenin which decorates the main square. I realized that I had a lovely picture of Lenin’s head in my guidebook and I used that to ask a young Buryat lady for directions. She pointed me in the direction of the underpass (yes, under the railway tracks) and my suspicion was confirmed – I had exited the station on the wrong side, and had been walking off the map.

Once I knew that, it took me very little time to get to where I was going (barring the ice). And that brings me to my profound joy upon seeing Lenin’s head.

I found the hostel shortly thereafter and immediately took a shower – three days on the train with no shower made bring able to wash my hair an amazing delight. Unfortunately, the toilet was similar to that on the train where you couldn’t flush any paper products, but rather had to throw them away. (Maybe the hostel’s building had a septic tank?) I did however simply assume that the hostel’s water was safe to drink and haven’t had any ill effects from brushing my teeth with it, though all other water was boiled. (It was strange to me that I would have to ask about water safety in Russia.)

I took some awkward pictures of myself in front of Lenin’s head, and explored Arbat Lenina, a pedestrian-only street that’s lined by 19th century buildings. I took some detours down random side streets, again without sidewalks, but lined in atmospheric, Siberian wooden houses. These houses are built of old, dark, weathered wood and they often have wooden fret-work trimming their eves and big painted shutters. If you think of Dr Zhivago, you won’t be far off. (Not to mention all the birches there are in Siberia – I feel like I should be in a sleigh pulled by horses, and possibly pursued by wolves or some scary supernatural creatures – instead of in a cozy sleeper on a modern train.)

Everywhere there are stray dogs, but they don’t seem too preoccupied by the humans around them.

On my way back through the old city, I stopped by the city museum. It had a couple of rooms set up in 19th century fashion to show what life was like back when.

I returned to the hostel, which is almost more like a home stay. There are 12 or 16 bunks in two rooms, a communal room, a kitchen, and the owner and his wife’s rooms. Perhaps because it is the smallest hostel I’ve stayed in, or perhaps it was that I was traveling on my own, but it had a nicely communal feel. I ended the evening chatting with the two French guys, guy from Hong Kong, woman from Germany, and owner.

Walking in Kyoto: A Gallery

Nishiki Market
Side street near Nishiki
Side street near Nishiki
By the river near Ponto-Cho
Walking in Kyoto
Street in Kyoto
Ponto-cho
Another view of Ponto-cho
Ponto-cho, quiet in the morning
Ponto-cho signage
Main street when exiting Ponto-cho
View in the other direction leaving Ponto-cho
The river, Kyoto
Houses on the river in Kyoto
View from across the river
Wandering…
Shrine across from a little bridge
View from little bridge
View from little bridge
View of bridge
View of little bridge

Westward Ho! From Vladivostok to Ulan Ude

And now I’ve almost caught up blogging (minus pictures) with where I am today, with the minor caveat that the posts have been written but not posted, as I have no Internet access right now. Hopefully the hostel in Ulan Ude will provide.

I’ve been on the Rossiya for about 40 hours of my first, 60+hour leg of my trip. My first Russian compartment mate got off yesterday morning and another took her place. I think this one deeply regrets that I don’t speak Russian as she seems like normally she’d be the chatty sort. Yesterday morning she spent quite some time setting up a Russian to English translator program and we were quite excited till we realized that it’s a one way conversation. We can’t make it do English to Russian, so I can’t answer her questions very well. We did try valiantly to communicate this morning, and showed each other photos of loved ones, but for much of the day, she’s watched videos on her laptop and I’ve either written posts (about five, I think!), looked at the window at the taiga, or read.

According to my guidebook, we didn’t even reach Siberia till today – we were still in the Far Eastern territories for about 2000 km. Today we got some sun, but yesterday, everything was white: sky greyish white with clouds and sometimes snow, white snow on the ground (be it hill or flat marsh), white birch trees among the other darker trees. It’s pretty to look at, but somewhat similar over the course of a day. As my compartment-mate said, eh, it’s taiga.

Yesterday almost the entire rest of the carriage was filled with young soldiers. Keep in mind that Russian trains are kept very warm (high 70s F, mid-20s C) and everyone changes into shorts or track pants and tee shirts (or no shirts, in the case of a couple of buff young men). So for all of three seconds I pulled a Lydia Bennett (“ooooh, soldiers!”) till I realized that our carriage has basically turned into a boys dorm, with the attendant smells and messier bathroom, and yopung men inadvertently starting to come into our compartment till it registers that it contains two females and not four bros. I am amply defended by the babushka in here (though she’s still a little young for that title) and we both start cracking up whenever the boys forget to read the number on the door. In all fairness to them, I think we may be the only compartment to have zero soldiers, since we’re women only.

In Which I Have A Guide

Tuesday March 26: two weeks after leaving the US, in the third country of this leg of my trip.

I admit that I was a little nervous about the part of my trip to Russia outside of the big cities of St Petersburg and Moscow. And in truth, I did feel safer looking lost on the streets of Tokyo or Seoul than lost on the streets of Vladivostok. Luckily, I found a private, affordable tour in Vladivostok on tourbylocals.com. Maria spoke decent English and spent the morning showing me around the city sites, kindly pointing out a cafe with good coffee for my afternoon after the tour and a place to get a good, affordable Russian lunch. I was very glad to have booked the tour, as it was great simply to be able to communicate well again.

We started off at the train station, where I was very happy Maria was able to act as interpreter as I swapped my e-reservations for tickets and needed to write my passport number, issuer, dates, and signature for each one. It would have been hard to know what the person was asking me to fill out. The train station itself is a pretty building, with the main waiting room decorated with a painting on the ceiling of Moscow and Vladivostok. And of course the mile marker for the end of the Trans-Siberian is here, so I obviously needed a picture!

Interestingly, everything in Russian railways is set to Moscow time – the train schedules on the board, my downloaded e-reservations (which freaked me out at first!), and the clocks in the station. This is a bit of a challenge when trying to then figure out what the actual local time is, as this trip goes through 7 time zones and my cell phone won’t update till I connect to wifi at the hostel in Ulan Ude. (I am writing this while on the Trans-Sib between Vladivostock and Ulan Ude, and will email it to myself so I can post it when I get somewhere with a computer. Email works better than blogging on my tiny phone-sized screen.)

Tickets achieved, we walked down a couple of the main streets of the historic center (in better repair than the pretty ugly streets near my hotel, riddled with potholes the size of craters) and Maria pointed out how many of the pastel-painted 19th century facades were reminiscent of the architecture in St Petersburg.

We popped into several museums: the Arsenev (with some exhibits on flora and fauna and another on some lovely flapper fashion, along with a room dedicated to a woman from Maine, Mrs Pray, who moved to Vladivostok to help her family’s business in the late 19th century and wrote so many letters home, the collection is now the best social history of the city of the period), the WWII submarine, and the 19th century house of a regional administrator who supported the tsar and whose son died supporting the Bolsheviks.

I even got to see an actual submarine come into harbor, tiny dots of people on top. I was encouraged to take a picture – when I asked if that were really ok, I was told “this isn’t North Korea!”

Once Maria headed out, I got my bearings and headed for lunch at a place she had recommended, the cafe attached to the department store GUM. I ordered meat rissoles wrapped in a cabbage leaf, which was pretty tasty, along with the inevitable tea. Russians seem to drink a lot of plain black tea with lemon, often Liptons Yellow Label. It’s interesting the difference in tea among the countries I’ve visited so far, as all of them drink a lot of it. In Japan it’s usually one of a variety of green teas, in Korea it’s a sweet fruit tea, and in Russia it’s black tea.

Over lunch, I wrote some postcards, then headed to the post office. Yet another adventure! I noticed that people were waiting for their number to be called, but I couldn’t figure out where they were getting the little pieces of paper with their number. So I waited till someone else came in and I followed her to the machine. I was confronted with 8 options. It dawned on me that several of these options were probably for banking and other similar matters of business, but I wasn’t sure whether posting things was one of the options. However, there was a counter nearby that did not have a line and it looked like people were buying envelopes there, so I hovered with my postcards out and the lady behind the counter helped me out. (She even decided to help me put the stamps on the postcards, and tut-tutted when I covered the postcard description. She then noticed that the Russian descriptions remained uncovered so promptly continued covering over the English!)

After that, I decided to kill some time at the Oceanarium, so I headed back the way I had come, in hopes of a warm place to sit. After almost falling asleep in a warm dark corner staring a fish swimming in circles, I decided to go get some coffee and cake at the cafe Maria had recommended. The cake was 3-4 times as expensive as other places in town (though the total was still reasonable by US standards) but the coffee was good and the atmosphere was charming. I settled in to read a book on my kindle and kill some time, as my train didn’t leave till 10:30PM.

I attempted to get dinner at the same place I had gotten lunch, asking for borscht, and was told I couldn’t have it either because they were no longer serving lunch items or because they were only serving items on their blackboard. Ah the language barrier! I’d seen a fast food place called Magic Burger and thought that fast food might have less of a language barrier. They even had an English menu posted at the entrance! Of course, I’d forgotten that minimum wage high schoolers tend to be the staff in such establishments, and I got a blank stare at my first attempt at ordering. So I gave that up, pointed blindly at a random burger, and ate my overcooked patty feeling really isolated and lonely. At this point, I’d been communicating really only very basic needs other than for a few days out of the past two weeks, and I missed having a conversation with someone. I’d known to expect loneliness but that often strikes later. It’s not so much the traveling alone as the not speaking the language AND traveling alone that got to me that evening. I’m sure having a cold didn’t help, either!

I returned to the hotel to pick up my bag and waited at the train station for the remaining three hours before the Rossiya was scheduled to leave.An hour before departure time, the track for my train was posted and people started moving closer to the track. I figured that the train had perhaps arrived early, so I asked the young man at the x-ray machine if the train I saw out the window was for Moscow. He hemmed and hawed so the soldiers nearby chimed in. Seeing my blank face at the spate of Russian, one of them indicated on his watch that I had to wait another hour. I thanked him and returned to the waiting room, where he and a fellow soldier followed me to look at my ticket to confirm they had told me the right thing and to make sure I understood what the Moscow time on the ticket meant. It was very nice of them, but it’s never the most comfortable feeling to have a couple of armed soldiers follow you, especially in Russia!

Nonetheless, I got safely on my train ( after a tough time finding the carriage) and tried chatting a little with my Russian matron compartment mate, thanks mostly to her use of a Russian equivalent of Google Translate on her laptop. (She must have had a mobile hotspot as well, because I definitely can’t connect.) Finally, as we pulled away from Vladivostok, we heard rousing orchestral music playing in the station.

Arrival in The Motherland: Vladivostok – ruler of the east

I arrived in Vladivostok Monday afternoon. Although on a map, Vladivostok doesn’t seem that much farther east than Tokyo or Seoul, it’s two time zones later. Guess I should check it out on a globe when I’m home, to see whether it’s a geographically or politically based zoning.

I hadn’t had much luck in getting a map printed out in Seoul, but I figured that there would be something posted at the train station or at a tourist info booth when I arrived. And how wrong I was! I got to the Vladivostok airport info desk and they helped me on how to catch the airport express train. However, they didn’t have as city map. I hopped on the train, delighted to find it even had wifi, and sent a quick “safe arrival” email. I tried using Google Maps walking directions but they were sparse. Once arrived at the station, I tried to find information or a map without luck. There were a number of men hanging around the station, probably taxi drivers, but enough so that I didn’t want to hang around walking in circles and looking lost any longer. So I picked a likely looking street ( not knowing my compass points in the city but with the vaguest of vague ideas that the hotel was to the west of the station) and started walking. 100 yards in, I saw a sign that said tourism, so I figured I’d keep going. I got two blocks up this steep hill and there was no tourist office, just possibly a travel agent or travel tv channel or something not too helpful. I approached two women taking a smoking break and showed them the address I was looking for. They didn’t speak a word of English, but what with pointing and drawing a pedestrian crossing in my little notebook, they managed to give me great directions. Turns out that intersection was where I needed to take a left and go to the crosswalk. Lo and behold, there was the hotel – or what I assumed was the hotel as I painfully tried to sound out the Cyrillic letters above the door.

It was indeed the Zemchuzina Hotel, so I checked in, then headed out to the supermarket around the corner to load up on supplies for the train trip (like juice boxes and ramen cups). I noticed each time I entered the lobby any men there would stare at me. I wondered if it were my schlubby American clothes (travel pants and a fleece, when all the young Russian women I’ve seen are carefully made up and coiffed, wearing either short skirts, skinny jeans, or leggings). I’ve since read in my Trans-Siberian guidebook that women staying alone at hotels are often thought to be prostitutes, so maybe they were wondering how I was going to get clients when I was more bundled up than the “proper” young Russian ladies!

I was only two blocks from a cafe recommended in my guidebook as marvelous, so with no other deciding factor, I decided to try it out. Then came another mortifying cultural exchange. (This trip is certainly good for my humility!) I walked into the cafe through its accompanying art gallery. The lady in the gallery watched me, even moving closer to the door between the gallery and cafe to see what the foreigner was going to do. The folks in the cafe said hi and then promptly ignored me. I made my way to the front, where there was a Russian/English menu, but it wasn’t clear to me if I ordered up there or sat at a table and was waited on or what. I also wasn’t sure how to pronounce the full phrase “do you speak English?” in Russian so I just said “English? (Angliski?)” in a questioning tone of voice. The woman behind the counter looked at me as though I were an idiot, pointed to the menu I had just been looking at, and told me it was in English and Russian. What I would have given to be able to reply!

Anyway, again, no dying of embarrassment, though I didn’t feel very welcome. It’s not that I expect people to speak English, it’s just that a smile and goodwill go a long way…but I ended up with a tasty and cheap plate of Russian meat dumplings with sour cream, and the lady at the cafe thawed a bit towards the end (possibly because it was clear I found two little boys who seemed to be her grand kids very cute – children are a universal).

I went to bed feeling very happy to have hired an English speaking guide for Tuesday morning, as I had anticipated some difficulties in Russia.

Gangnam Style Part Two

Flexibility being an important part of travel, I had decided to extend my stay at the Ritz by one night so I could enjoy the luxury of a comfy bed before my multi-day train journey. I also didn’t want to deal with figuring out how to catch the airport bus at 6am from a spa when it stopped right outside the hotel. I felt a little guilty on missing out on the great spa adventure, but it turned out to be a good thing as I came down with a cold my last night in Seoul. (I’m trying to remember: there is no guilt on this trip. Nothing is a “have to do”. Why is it so difficult to remember that?)

However, I felt bright and chipper during the day, able to walk around another palace (Changdeokgung), its secret garden, and two neighborhoods nearby (Bukchon, full of traditional Korean houses called hanok that are actually still lived in, and Insadong, a souvenir shopping neighborhood).

Changdeokgung was better preserved than the other palace, and so it and the secret garden behind it have been named UNESCO sites, the garden specifically because of how it stays in balance with nature. I spent 2-3 hours in the complex taking a palace tour and then a garden tour as well, as you can only enter the garden via a tour. I found the palace to be lovelier than Gyeongbokgung, with lots of little nooks with amazing old trees next to curling tile roofs. The garden and its pagodas were lovely, but I suspect they are much lovelier in a few weeks or months with spring, summer, or even fall foliage. I think I was also getting ready for lunch by the end! Armies and tourists march on their stomachs…

I then ventured into Bukchon, where the hanok houses are clustered on a hill (Seoul is a very hilly city). I toured one called Simsimheon, which was a little awkward since I was the only person touring this private vacation home at the time. I got to sip a cup of delightful plum tea (again, very sweet) while overlooking the hanok garden. I also tried some street food: “spicy rice cakes”, which were chewy puffed rice sausages liberally painted with a hot sauce that thankfully was not too hot. I then made my way to a restaurant that I had seen offering bibimbap. I tried snail bibimbap, and I must admit that the snail was not great, though the rest was tasty. The snail basically tasted like chewy.

Next came the quest for a western style toilet. I found a public toilet, but it was Korean style (over which you squat) and I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough for that. The subway station had a mix, and I was fortunate enough to get a western one so I wouldn’t have to wave a Korean girl forward while pantomiming that I was waiting for a western toilet. (How would you even begin to pantomime that? Takes better charades skills than mine, that’s for sure.)

I then walked down to Insadong, where I had more sweet, yummy tea, bought some magnets, and searched fruitlessly for individual postcards to no avail. (All they had were books of postcards containing lots of sites I hadn’t seen and only a couple I had, so I didn’t buy them.) I tried some more street food, a pancake-shaped piece of fried dough filled with honey and sesame seeds. Delicious! Also burning hot.

I headed home relatively early, knowing I had an early morning ahead of me.

Gangnam Style

I left Tokyo for Narita Airport without any problems. My flight on Korean Airways was uneventful – a meal of fish, Skyfall on their movie selection, the newspaper to make sure that North Korea wasn’t going to do anything war-like while I was so close to the border.

Arriving in Seoul, I tried to figure out which bus to take, as the hotel’s website said bus number 3. Turned out that the 3 was a suffix so that wasn’t very helpful, but I got directed to someone who could and did help and I managed to get onto the bus in short order.

With my hotel points, I had planned to spend two nights at the Ritz Carlton in Gangnam for free and then spend my last night in a Korean spa. The bus dropped me off at the hotel, and once checked in, I was shown to my room by the concierge, who was dressed in traditional Korean dress. This is very different from Japanese clothing to which I had become accustomed, consisting instead of a long bell skirt (almost like a hoop skirt) and a short waisted jacket.

The hotel provided a Korean cell phone for use during my stay – with very reasonable rates for texting in Korea. I had arranged to meet up with a friend’s Korean sister-in-law, so we met at the hotel. She and several of her friends whom I had met that night had gone to school at UW Madison. They took me out to a Japanese restaurant in Gangnam they usually hang out in, and I got to try soju (“Korean whiskey”). Then we went clubbing at a place called Eden. I got to party Gangnam-style! The club was fun, not too different from many American clubs except for the smoking, and my hosts showed me a great time.

I naturally slept in the next day, and awoke dragging a little. Nevertheless, I made the most of my afternoon, heading over to Gyeonbokgung, one of the city’s primary palaces. I caught the end of the changing of the guard ceremony, then joined an English language tour of the palace. It’s an impressive palace, but sadly much of what is there is not original due to it being largely rebuilt and restored. Part of what came alive the most for me in Korea was the history of their interactions with Japan, both the Japanese invasion in the 16th century and their rocky history in the 20th, when Japan occupied Korea for over 30 years.

I left the palace complex to ogle at the Blue House (their White House, blue tiles having historically symbolized the ruler), then circled around to check out the palace museum. I decided first to have some lunch, preferably more Korean in flavor than my breakfast of a bagel and cream cheese. (Seoul has lots of coffee shops with American style pastries, not just in Gangnam.) I ate at the museum restaurant, where the food was based largely on historical dishes. I enjoyed my dumplings in lotus leaves and their sauce, and gamely tried the kimchi. I’m still not a huge fan, I must admit. I had a lovely fruit tea (quince, I think), which turned out to be very sweet. Then I walked through the museum, admiring the clothing and other exhibits that one could enjoy without English language signage.

I then decided to walk to Cheoung-gye, a stream in the middle of the city that essentially was build over prior to the 90s but was uncovered and turned into a city park as part of a revitalization campaign. On my way there, I walked through the giant square outside Gyeongbokgung, passing the US consulate or embassy and stopping by an underground exhibit. There were actually two exhibits: one on the king who created the Korean phonetic alphabet and the other on the navy captain who developed “turtle ships” and defeated the Japanese in a number of 16th or 17th century battles. It was a great exhibit, with lots of hands-on things that made me wish I were enjoying it with a small child.

And then I resurfaced and walked to the stream, which is indeed lovely. Since it’s below street level, yet open to the sky, you’re able to forget that you’re in the city for a while.

Dinner was another budget-conscious convenience store delight, with fresh fruit and rice in seaweed triangles (like in Japan). I thought I’d also try something I’d seen on some menus called banana milk. It was with great trepidation that I tried it, thinking I might have a repeat of the melon drink, but it was actually very good!