Gyeongju: The Korean Valley of the Kings

If I had to have the same view for all of eternity, I wouldn't mind this one. This is Gyeongju, the capital of the Silla Dynasty and home to many well preserved spiritual and governmental sites. The modern city is in pretty much the same spot as it was first built, situated in a beautiful green valley on the Hyeongsan river.

Many sites have been well-preserved or discovered and restored, and most have been made available to the public for small entrance fees. The most common sites are tombs, which would have been for royalty or people of high rank and with the means to build them. They look like huge, perfectly shaped hills and are built up with stone of various sizes and soil, with the actual tomb buried at the bottom. We saw a cross section of one mound, and the precision with which the stones were placed was impressive. It's no wonder these tombs have remained unchanged for so many centuries.
Many of them are unmarked and unadorned, which I imagine is because the accompanying statues and markers have been lost or taken over the years. But I don't know very much about anything so don't take my word for it. I think also the amount of outer adornment had to do with how much importance a person had, or how much money they had to decorate. This is the tomb of General Kim Yushin, who was one of the driving forces behind the unification of the three separate kingdoms on the Korean peninsula in the 7th century.

The actual burial mound was pretty small, but it came with some sweet decoration. The wall around it is spaced with reliefs of the twelve animals of the Asian Zodiac. In the lower left corner you can see a little bit of the ox (that's me!).

This is at Oreung, a burial site for several early Silla kings. They have not one, but two gates protecting their tombs.

I'm not sure how the landscaping works. In my imagination, large groups of gardeners come out at dusk with grass clippers and go over each mound carefully. Or someone just goes crazy on a riding mower.

We saw a lot of these tombs, and you could say that once you've seen one you've seen them all. There's only so much variation on the grassy mound theme besides height or steepness and ornamentation. But there was something really stirring about staring up the slopes of these ancient markers. It might have been the natural beauty of their surroundings, or the warmth and sunshine, or it might have been the thought of all the care and attention that goes into their upkeep. Their simplicity is perfect, melting into the landscape around them and quietly reminding visitors of the rich history that is often overshadowed by the bustle of Korea's modern cities.

They also look like they'd be really fun to roll down.

Heartthrob.

My second cousin. First cousin once removed? Whatever he, is I'm in love.

Mini-break!

I love my family and appreciate that they have been letting me stay with them for so long, but after a couple of weeks of their attentive care I was ready for a little independence. Lucky for me, I have thoughtful friends who happen to be very popular, and before I got to Korea I was given the contact information for the good friend of a good friend teaching in Seosan. After a couple of emails and a phone call, we set a weekend for me to come down for a visit.

It took a bit of nudging to get out of town; first my family wanted to know why anyone would go teach in Seosan, a tiny city compared to Seoul, and then they were concerned that I wouldn't survive the two hour bus trip back and forth. My uncle took me to the bus station, bought my ticket, and spoke to every staffer there he could find to tell them I came from the US and needed help getting on the right bus at the right time. An hour later, just as my bus was about to leave (with me safely on it), he ran back, out of breath and slightly sweaty, to give me my aunt's phone for the weekend. Even though I assured him I would be fine and had already used a pay phone (twice!), he insisted, and left again, reminding me to sit out of the sun. Five minutes later, the driver started the engine and was getting himself situated, when surprise! Back comes my uncle. He ran back on the bus and told me the phone was on silent. He took it off silent, called it to make sure it worked, and at last was forced to let me go.


The drive down was lovely, all lush green landscape and surprisingly few high-rise apartment buildings once we left we the big city. I listened to pretty music and thought about things and felt at peace. When I got to Seosan, I was greeted by my new best friend Jake, who welcomed me to town and spoke to me like an adult and generally made me feel very welcome. We headed to the rooftop of one of his fellow English teachers and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun, drinking beer, eating Jolly Pong, listening to music, and chatting while a few more friends trickled in. Everyone was so inviting and fun, and I thought to myself, If I were going to do something like this, I'd love to be surrounded by these folks.


Roof darts! Like lawn darts but with weighted rubber balls instead of sharp metal spikes, and on a roof instead of a lawn. After nearly lobbing a dart off the roof and onto a parked car, I decided to save my energy for drinking beer on the sidelines and making the occasional objective judgment call. As the sun went down and our bellies started rumbling, we made our way over to a little place called Garten Bier, where I saw two things that have changed my life forever.


OH MY GOD IT'S A REFRIGERATED CUP HOLDER! Seriously. This is so brilliant. I think I must have said "This is the coolest thing I've ever seen" (literally!) about fifteen times, until one of my new friends told me I needed to get out more. But really, this is genius. Don't you hate how sometimes you just want to savor a beer but it will only get warmer and warmer until by the end it's like drinking flat barley juice? I do. With this 4 degree Celsius Bio cup holder you never have to worry about that again! I mean really. How neat! Possibly even better than my cup holder was the beverage that stayed cool inside it. Behold:


Soju. Slushie. In mango! So delightful. I had two, and I could see these being very dangerous. They tasted like the freshest, ripest mangoes had been just been picked from the tree and chopped up right then and blended with ice and soju. The food we ate was good too, but nowhere near as memorable as the drinks. The evening progressed into the wee hours of the morning, bringing with it a climb to a hilltop observation tower, some new Korean friends, and an epic two hours at a noreh-bahng, or karaoke room, where you and ten of your closest friends can pick all the songs the MC's at regular karaoke bars never let you sing. Having spent the two weeks prior going to bed at 9 every night, this was just the kind of night I needed. Many thanks to my new loves, Seosan is lucky to have you!

Oh. Yeah: Ssam Gyeop Sal

We make fire. Cook meat. Mm. Technically, waitstaff make fire, but we did cook our own meat! Welcome to ssam gyeop sal, the Korean barbecue that no one I know of can resist. A bowl of hot charcoal is brought to your table and placed under a little grill. You get a big plate of lettuce leaves and sometimes sesame leaves (a relative of Japanese shiso), spicy soy bean paste, and various vegetable toppings, plus a big plate of raw meat that you get to cook up just the way you like. It's usually sliced really thinly so that it cooks up quickly, and our first plate was gone in less than 30 minutes.

See? Meat! Plus a handy vacuum hose that can be moved up and down as needed to suck up all the smoke. We had beef marinated in spicy sauce, but you can also get plain beef in various cuts, pork belly, mushrooms, and more.

Aaaghh.... That's a sigh of contentment trying to work its way out through a mouthful of this wonderment. Take a leaf or two of lettuce, add a smear of soy bean paste, pile on some green onion shredded and mixed with sesame oil and some spices, follow that with a bit of spicy radish kimchi, a grilled up bit of garlic if it's available, and, finally, meat. I started layering mine this way because occasionally the meat, so fresh off the grill, can make my fingers feel uncomfortably warm, and I don't want anything getting in the way of my ssam gyeop sal enjoyment. Technique is as varied as the different add-ins can be, and you may find yourself with shredded cabbage in place of green onions, cucumber or cabbage instead of radish, sesame oil with sea salt as a dipping sauce. The main idea is that when you eat meat you should eat a vegetable with it, and why not just wrap it in a vegetable too?

Yes. The grill is cooling, little bits of burnt grease and the scent of smoke in my clothing all that's left of our dinner, and my inner caveman has been satisfied. For now.

Things I've Eaten in the Last Week.

Fried chicken from BBQ, a Korean chain that is only a few short years away from total world domination. Seriously, look at their website. Their parent company, Genesis, which began in the 90's with just BBQ and now has 10 other chains, wants to have 50,000 locations worldwide by 2020. They started in Korea, making "Olive Luxury Chicken," whole chickens that are freshly chopped up, battered, and fried in olive oil. Plus, here at least, they deliver! Though most fast food chains do here so that's no big thing. We got the regular and one with some sort of sweet sauce. The regular was super crispy, flavorful, and moist without being at all fatty. The sauce was really different too, I think it had some allspice in it, was sweet and rich, with a little bit of tang. Yum! My cousin's husband works for the company; I'm pushing for Seattle as their next US location.

Ah, to be drunk in Seoul. Late running public transportation, and a plethora of 24-hour fast food joints like this one, where we sampled some excellent odeng, or fish cake. Not as gross as it sounds! I don't know the exact formula, but it's basically fish and flour with various spice and/or vegetable add-ins. Something more familiar might be those pink and white slices you sometimes get in a bowl of Japanese udon. In Korea it's prepared many ways: in soups, stir fries, thrown into spicy rice cake dishes, and for those busy people (sober or otherwise) on the go, boiled or deep fried and served on a stick. Most places that offer it will either have someone dishing them out or just leave a warm pot and a bowl to collect the few coins it costs to eat one.

We also bought a couple of rolls of kimbap to go. Kimbap is like sushi, Korean style. Instead of vinegar, the rice is mixed with toasty sesame oil and sometimes the roasted seeds themselves, filled with a variety of sauteed meats and veggies, fried egg, pickled radish, and sometimes deep fried, barely-there tofu or a thin rope of artificial crab, then wrapped in nori that's also been painted with sesame oil and salted. This particular one had beef, hot dog, egg, radish, sauteed carrots and spinach, and some sort of tasty mystery food. It's unbelievably satisfying, starchy, meaty, vegetable-y, tangy, and toothsome. Seriously, excellent drunk food (Or you could just call out for some fried chicken), and probably fairly healthy.

These late night restaurants and carts are everywhere, and sell all manner of foods. They're great for students and business folk, many of whom work until after 9 or 10. They're cheap and fast, so you can grab a quick bite while waiting for the bus, or sit inside and keep the party going. Have I mentioned that I think these places must be great for nights out drinking? Because I really do.


Some free cookies at a tea shop I visited in Insa-dong. I have no idea what the ones on the left are made of, other than air, honey, and the innocence of children. On the right is yakgwa, made with flour, maybe eggs, sometimes spices like cinnamon, and honey or liquid yeot (a Korean sweet, essentially a cooked sugar where the starting liquid is made from fermented rice or other grains). The little biscuits are shaped and then fried, giving them a crisp, glossy outer layer and soft, malty sweet insides.

Yakgwa translates literally to "medicine biscuit," and was considered to be beneficial to the health because of its ingredients. These were about an inch in diameter, but they're usually much larger, maybe 3 inches, and quite hefty. Because of the work required to make them, they've become mostly mass produced and sit on store shelves for ages, bland to start with and further drying out and becoming completely wasted calories. When they're freshly made in a small batch, they're lovely, like these were.

And in anticipation of the next three weeks of eating, it's now time for me to hit the gym.

Oh. Yeah?

The other day, before experiencing the wondrous musical extravaganza that was the "Pimas-gul Love Song," my cousin and I spent some time wandering around the Insa-dong street, a place with lots of shops selling traditional Korean handicrafts and clothing, contemporary-but-with-a-traditional-spin clothing stores, and little galleries and shops full of contemporary arts and goods. It looks kind of like this:


There are also many little stands and carts selling delightful snacks: whole potatoes sliced, fried, and spiced, served on sticks, spun sugar candies, spicy stir-fried rice cakes, sweet little cakes made kind of like ebelskivers with red bean filling, and about as many kinds of meat on a stick a carnivore could hope for. I neglected to try most of them, sadly, but I will surely go back. Many people are of the opinion that South Korea is where it's at for fast, delicious, and innovative food, and I have to agree that it's not a bad place to be.

Just before the show, we hit up a little restaurant for some don-kas, the Korean version of Japanese katsu (I don't know which came first but it's probably obvious where my loyalty lies). There didn't seem to be much difference to me; there's not so much you need to do differently when it comes to panko-coated, deep-fried pork cutlet. It was crispy and just greasy enough. We got a combo, which came with fish-kas, essentially fish sticks for grown-ups, and jumok-bap, which translates to fist-rice and is, as you might guess, a fist sized ball of rice, in this case interspersed with roasted sesame seeds and rolled in little strips of salted nori. There was also some really refreshing clear soup and a salad.


Hmm. . . I thought to myself. That's a colorful salad. Are those tomatoes? Maybe I should take a closer look.

I don't know how soon American salad bars will be featuring fruit loops and frosted flakes alongside the usual tomatoes and baby corn, but I have to say after having this I wouldn't turn up my nose. They'd probably also have to learn this place's dressing recipe. It was creamy, sweet and citrusy, with a lit bit of a vinegar kick, and the corn added some salty, savory heft. It made for a surprisingly tasty dish, the cereal complementing the dressing and adding an unusual crunch to the shredded lettuce.

Fast? Yes. Delicious? Yes. Innovative? Yes. Thank the stars for the Koreans, who also came up with the famed Col-pop and pizza cones. I don't know if their ideas always come to fruition as delectably as this salad, but I certainly hope they keep them coming.

RATS! A Musical

Shortly before I left Seattle, I was fortunate enough to go see the Seattle Opera's production of Tristan und Isolde, Wagner's epic, 4+ hour long telling of the medieval romantic legend. While I really appreciated the cultural experience and thought the music was beautiful, it reaffirmed my general feeling that if you've seen one tragic romance, you've seen them all. Then I came to Korea, and my cousin took me to a musical called "Pimas-gul Love Song".

Set in the middle of the Chosun Dynasty (probably in the 17th century sometime), in either a village that was where Seoul now is, or a backstreet community in an already extant Seoul, "PGLS" was described to me as Korean Romeo and Juliet, but with singing. I have to admit that I didn't have the highest expectations, especially when one of the opening lines spoken said something about "A man passed through here once and now's it's all warm and fishy-smelling". (There were, by the way, little screens with English subtitles conveniently located for my viewing pleasure!)


The first song, a speedy, percussion-heavy number about village life full of a great mix of traditional and modern dance moves, got me pretty into the whole thing. Even if the story is lame, I thought, at least there's sweet dancing. The rest of Act 1 was pretty predictable: Boy meets Girl under apricot tree that is also an ancient spirit, Boy pisses off Girl's Brother by not letting him cut down the special tree, Brother beats him up and locks him in a shed to kill him in the morning, while in shed Boy feeds two rats and remarks on how one has spots on its body and the other on its tail, Girl rescues Boy and they fall deeply in love, Brother discovers Girl hiding Boy, stabs him and throws him in the river, and Girl kills herself.

At intermission, my cousin and I wondered what on earth they could possibly do with the remaining hour. All the basic plot points seemed to have been covered. We predicted that Boy would not really be dead but then discover that Girl is dead and so kill himself. But seriously, how would that fill an hour? There's only so much woeful singing and swaying a person can take, and I wasn't optimistic.

Act II opens on Boy, lost in a foggy nether-region between life and death, dazed and confused after climbing out of the river. The apricot tree spirit appears, telling him where he is and that she owes him one for saving her life. She'll help him get to Girl, but first he has to help some other people. We're transported to a Seoul in the 1930-40's, where smartly dressed men and women do a spirited Charleston. But wait, I thought to myself, why do they have big fake ears on? And... tails?! They were RATS. The apricot tree spirit appears again and explains that the power of Boy and Girl's cries for one another created some sort of rift in the time space continuum/other universe in which rats sing and dance, live life and fall in love just like the people that preceded them in the first act

Moving on, the rats now prove themselves to have mad flow and bad ass- if somewhat anachronistic- hip hop dance moves. They rap about being rats, ruling the night time, and about how the rats with spots on their bodies don't mix with the rats who have speckled tails, and then they break dance fight back and forth across the stage. The music stops when a girl rat with speckled tail and boy rat with spotted body climb up into a tree and say they're in love and won't climb down until both groups accept their union. This is met with rage and a lot of squeaky yelling until Boy steps in and asks what the big fuss is. At first the rats are shocked that he's human, but soon tell him their 300 year history: a great poet once gave the rats sacred beans and told them of their differences, and ever since they have lived in fierce separation. Boy realizes he was the poet, and proves it to them by showing the bag whence the beans had come so many years ago. He tells them he was wrong to have pointed out that difference. At first the rats seems willing to dance as friends, but their long-held enmity wins out, and it seems all is lost. Boy realizes that only a child with both tail speckles and body spots will bring about peace, and tells the two rats in the tree to bone.

Suggestive dancing ensues, the girl rat has morning sickness, and all is well. Apricot tree spirit takes Boy to some other sort of nether-region. Through a dark veil he can hear and almost see Girl, but before he can try to get to her the long-dead spirit of Brother, still quite pissed off, appears, and tries to kill Boy. Then some stuff happens that I don't understand and the apricot tree spirit has pushed Brother into some sort of hellish fire pit. I think at this point Girl is sucked down with him because Boy despairs and tries to kill himself. The rats come to his rescue though, and offer to create some sort of one-night-only bridge between their world and hers, so that Boy and Girl can reunite. They are slowly pushed towards each other on flowery platforms, then hug and sing meaningfully, and eventually are pulled apart again, but don't seem sad.

The apricot tree spirit sings a closing song, and the curtains close. But then, they rise again! With a medley! Recapping all the previous songs! Plus more dancing! This is the best way to take a bow I've ever seen.

My cousin says that a lot of Koreans are very xenophobic and resistant to the numbers of immigrants coming in from SE Asia to work. The musical was given funding by the city of Seoul, and she thinks that that's why there was such a strong message about cultural understanding and acceptance. There were also brief allusions to Japanese-Korean marriage and homosexuality. Ever the cynic, I had expected a boring, traditional Korean love story full of sadness and women collapsing in despair. Despite the two moony-eyed lovers staring longingly across a bifold poster at the theater's entrance:


I instead found a mostly uplifting and vastly entertaining piece with a lot of relevance to both modern Korean society and to people everywhere in this ever-shrinking world of ours. Secondary lesson learned: stop judging books by their covers.

Oh. Yeah.

This is it. This is a dish that embodies what I love about Korea: under a polite and mild-mannered exterior is a straightforward kick to the shin, blunt and loud and completely unapologetic.



Here I am, blithely dipping into a bowl of blazing red Champong, a noodle soup that has origins in Japan and China, and is now found in Korean-Chinese restaurants here and abroad. It's usually made with a variety of seafood, and at this particular place it came piled high with fresh from the tank shellfish, clean and perfectly cooked. Those first bites of clam, bigger clam, and huge scallop are amazing, not at all rubbery and lightly scented with the cooking broth, spicy but not yet painful, just starting that slow burning feeling on my tongue.

Five minutes later, with a bowl of discarded shells behind me, the real challenge begins: I'm left with a bowl of opaque red soup made of chicken or beef stock, various savory things like onions and garlic, and what must have been a mountain of Korean ground chilies. The pleasant sensation of spice from before is now an almost unbearable pain, the soup is both spicier than anything I've had so far and still boiling hot, and it makes my eyes water and nose run, sweat beginning to bead up on my forehead. But the few taste buds I have left, despite losing more and more of their comrades with every mouthful, are crying out with joy, and I can't stop, I must keep shoveling as many of the rich, eggy noodles and chewy, fresh bamboo shoots into my face as I can, stopping only for a spoonful or two of the thick, almost gritty broth. It is the most exquisite torture.

Before I know it, I'm done, mouth still on fire, dredging the bottom of the bowl with my spoon, hoping for a few last bits of noodle. Finally, I let go of my spoon, gulp down a couple mugs full of cooling barley tea, and wipe the sweat and tears from my face. The heat on my tongue dissipates surprisingly quickly. All I feel now is happy and full.

I'm so glad I'm here.

Welcome to Korea

Here I am! I successfully boarded the bus from the airport to my aunt’s house. You may be able to see the light sheen of sweat that developed as soon as I left the air-conditioned building. I don’t think it will be leaving me for a while, but I don't mind.