Day 0-1: E-ville to Seoul

Day 0-1: E-ville to Seoul

Weather: Fine in E-ville at 8pm, 36F at 4am in Seoul (brrrr….), chilly when we’re out walking in the middle of the day, and then some thunder and light rain in the early evening.

Dad gets plenty of help with the household chores 

Quote of the Day:  Wrinkle free? Colors only? Sanitize? Extra-dry? C'mon dad, give us some help here.

Pictorial Pop Quiz: que es eso? (If THB asked the question in Korean, you would have to answer in Korean)

Big pic above gate G100 in SFO Intl Terminal

THB and DB are on the road again, albeit with only ourselves along on this trip. SAS has some heart discomfort (something THB can empathize with) and SAS and CYS opted out with good reason; in Bhutan we'll be doing high altitude travels and there is limited medical support for the most part. 

Our flight leaves SFO at 11:30pm and THB’s first goal on the 13 hour flight to Seoul is to fall asleep. Reasonable successful as THB doesn’t have a meal until 1:30am Seoul time, a day later (lots of time change). That’s approximately 10.5 hours after takeoff.

Bibimbap after assembly

Croissant

Dessert is a cookie on the bottom, sort of a mousse/marshmallow in the middle and dusting of chocolate on top

THB goes native and has dinner for breakfast: bibimbap! Flight is on time, lands before 4am, and we’re through immigration and customs as fast as possible given it still is a long way from the airplane to baggage claim. Our airport transfer awaits us and after a 50 minute ride to downtown, we’re in our room on an “executive floor” at the Westin Chosun by 6am, time to unpack and shower.

Room 1424

Comes with emergency equipment

DB uses the mini-Bose during flights. As we were retrieving luggage as the plane (not a 737 Max) pulled up to the gate, a guy behind THB saw the case lying on the floor and asked me if it was mine. In THB's jet lag stupor he said yes, must be. Nope! When we unpacked we discovered we now have two matching sets and someone on the plane is now missing their set.

Unpack, head to the breakfast buffet (included…the room is around $360/night). THB goes back to Antarctica for eggs and ham and DB goes for udon and dim sum. Tour the hotel: there is an immense fitness center that is clearly a gym for locals, some fine art in the lobby, and a mini-executives only dining area on the 20^th floor (we’re on 14).

We’re taking a historical tour starting at 11am, so THB uses the time before heading out to take a brief nap and relax with the NYT (old news) and a book on the Brits who first attempted summiting on Everest in the early 1920s.

Fitness center is on two floors, and you can't wear your street shoes inside

THB has a hard time finding his shoes again...they're at the top of hard-to-find stairs...or is this just a cosmic jet lag joke?

20th floor version of a breakfast buffet

One of two Edmund du Waal wall pieces: The Poems of Our Climate 

Close-up

Works and Days

Close-up

Maria from Rominia

It’s a relatively short walk to our meet up with Maria, she's right on schedule at 11. She’s giving us a tour of the older part of downtown Seoul, smooshed between the old palace (which burned down about 150 years ago) and the new palace. She’s 35ish, Romanian, living in Seoul while getting her PHD, doing teaching and tour guiding on the side. 

From Wikipedia: Ordered by Queen Mother Jo, the residence was renovated into a grand complex with four gates. The buildings created were modest in design with mostly natural wood. Though not as grand as the other palaces in Seoul, Unhyeongung is a fine representation of the homes of noblemen during the late Joseon Dynasty period.

Norakdang Hall, a women’s residence, and Noandang Hall, the men’s residence, were built in 1864. This was during the first year of Gojong’s rule. Irodang Hall, an exclusive residence for women, was built five years later in 1869.

During the Joseon Dynasty, the palace was a center or neo-Confucian thought, which was the idea of basing civil progress on merit rather than lineage.

Back to THB: men quarters separate from women, the king had his grandmother, mother and wife in the other quarters. Below are pics of the recreation with life size mannequins inside each building; viewing from outside only

THB thinks he is in Antarctica, for DB it is just another cool day

Roof tops of Bukchon, a traditional Hanok residential area in downtown Seoul

Traditional kimchee fermentation barrels

A collaborator with the Japanese built a biggggg house in 1912;  Baek In-Je was the last owner before the city took over the property

These panels drop down in the winter to cut down the space that has to be heated

These plaques are embedded in the sidewalks to let you know you're on the right path

For the next three hours she gives us quite a bit of information (most of the building we see are really recreations), some of historical interest and some of current politics between North and South Korea, Japan, and China.

Very eclectic, and empty, place for our onesies

Date tea

We take a break around 1 for unusual teas and matcha cake (included in the tour). At 2 we part ways and try and find a local restaurant while meandering through the old part of town. Turns out that the place was closed from 3 to 5…and we’re there at 2:30.

Is there a name on this sign?

The dining room is empty, note that it is sit-on-the-floor style

THB watches the two chefs assembling our lunch

Mussel rice

Unusual pizza!

Wander down the street and end up finding a similar menu at another place named…named….gosh, THB can’t tell what the name is. Healthy Food? We share a fish and leek “pizza” (maybe more like one of those Japanese egg pancakes, okonomiyaki), greasy with a good sesame-soy dipping sauce, spicy pork (too spicy for DB), two bowls of mussel rice (yep, mini-mussels mixed in with brown rice), miso soup, no drinks, $34.

Back to the hotel, passing the US Embassy where it looks like there are competing protests going on: one for unification of North and South and one for closer ties between the South and USA. It’s getting close to 5pm and we’ve got our 12,000 steps in, over 5 miles of walking. Pretty impressive: we must be both fighting off jet lag successfully and benefitting from taking a night flight. We’ll see if that holds up over the next three days.

Seoul money is pretty easy to convert: 1000 won is $1. As best as THB can tell, everything comes out to cost even 1000s, no coins or bills smaller than a 1000. We’ll see if that hold up over the next three days.

We decide that we’re not in good enough shape to do more than go up to the Executive floor for a make-it-yourself drink and some appetizers. While the drinks are just okay, the appetizers are just enough for us to say we’ve eaten dinner and go back to the room and crash.

Book reviews: THB just finished both of the following books just before our trip. Quite the contrast! Since they're both Highly Recommended, THB moved up their review dates.

Pessimism

Climate Wars, the Fight for Survival as the World Overheats, Gwynne Dyer (paperback, pub’d 2010): after reading this book (10 years after publication) if you’re not a collapsarian like THB you soon will be converted.

Each of the 8 chapters is prefaced with a well-thought out scenario (of gloom and doom), and most are looking closer in rather than further out (mid 2030s?) For example: temps well beyond 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial days; lack of food causing mass migration away from the equator (especially in Africa), the southern US, Mexico, the Mediterranean and south-to-mid China to northern climes where it won’t be quite as hot and crops can still be grown; Bangladesh, Florida and the eastern seaboard of US going underwater; and the UK restricting immigration (yes, Dyer predicted Brexit and DJT’s “Build the Wall!” albeit for a different reason);

Things weren’t looking good in 2010 and nothing has happened since to staunch the flow of co2 into the atmosphere, with no viable solutions on hand. Get your kids and grandkids prepared. 

Optimism

Factfulness, Hans Rosling with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund (hardback, pub’d posthumously in 2018): How wrong can we be about the basic large data facts in our world? More wrong than chimpanzees randomly selecting answers? Can everyone be so wrong? Yes. Rosling (died Feb 2017) is infuriating, challenging, bold optimist, smug, bright, sometimes snarky, brazen, brilliant, and to THB he's occasionally wrong (though THB can't prove it, which is the point…see Pessimism above). Read this book and be prepared to change your mind and approach. Similar in concept to Suzy Hansen’s Notes on a Foreign Country and Adam Briggle’s A Field Philosopher’s Guide to Fracking, this book puts you to the test of the kind of lens you use to make sense of the world.

Pics from around town:

These outfits are rented and worn throughout "old town"....$10 for 2 hours, $15 for 4 hours. Mostly rented by girls between 14 and 16 years of age

Dried persimmons (trees are just starting to bud)

Plum trees in blossom

Hmmm...

Mom and twins

Maybe it isn't kiddie porn

It's a test: the building is on fire...do you chance the fire escape?

The new city hall