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Now Grumpma is gone, a traditional Korean breakfast, Kimchi, rice and cornflakes...,oh yeah and purple grape juice

Today was intended to be a quiet day after two long and very late nights, particularly for Amelie. This means instead of walking 15 kilometres, we only manages a mere 10.

along the avenue towards Gyeongbokgung Palace each Sunday a Farmers market is run. It was fun to wander the stalls, sampling the fare. The variety of food available is from fresh fruit, to honey, to Kim chi, to dried fish, to rice cakes. Certainly vastly different to the produce found inFarmers markets back home.

Today another Market accompanied the farmers market. I would tend to describe is as a trash and treasure I n Australia or a car boot sale in the UK. Basically it appeared anyone wanting to sell off old clothes, books and bric'n'brac could hire a stall to sell.... Stuf.

After a brief sojourn amongst the stalls, we ventured back to the farmers market to buy a little produce. We thought it may be nice instead of wafting chips before dinner, to have some kimchi instead. Well something must've been lost in the translation as we intended to oeprder a little of two types of ki chi and somehow ended up with 2.5kgs of the stuff.

Taekwondo demonstration, Namsagool, Seoul

At this rate we'll have to consume it morning, noon and night, plus roll it up to smoke just to have some chance of finishing it before we fly out Friday. I'm pretty sure Australian customs won't let us in with a half eaten bag of pickled veg.

"What's that suspicious half rotten vegetable matter you have in that bag swimming in a toxic red liquid?"

"Um, officer would you believe it's lunch?"

"Kindly step this way sir while we slip on the rubber gloves."

Taekwondo :eom stratify Namsagool, Seoul

Quickly ducking back to the apartment to attempt to make some dent in the Mountain of preserved plant material, accompanied by rice and seaweed sheets, new plans were formulated for the afternoon.

We decided to head over to Namsongol Traditional folk village below the towering heights of ?Seoul Tower. Here, there are to add to the festive air of the traditional buildings, public performances demonstrate aspects of Korean .culture. this week the performance is Taekwondo. It was billed as a dymanic demonstration of Koreas traditional martial art. Well it certainly was that, but was the greater surprise was the age of the troop. I'd say the oldest may have been 15, but all would have to have been black belts to make a demonstration squad of this quality. Certainly to be breaking boards etc. they would have to be highly ranked. It was difficult to tell because their uniform had a red and black collar and the belt was a red and black stripe running the length of the belt.

YyDespite their age the demonstration certainly lived up to the descriptor dynamic. High kicks, split boards and giant leaps displayed a high degree of skill and athleticism. It certainly impressed Amelie who quickly snaffled a couple of broken boards as souvenirs and climbed on stage to have her photo taken beside the performers.

It did say it was dynamic!

Amongst our travels today we managed to bump into two groups of Victorian .han Ho families separately. We never bump into them during trips to Melbourne, so what does Seoul have that Melbourne doesn't, apart from about 5 million people. What are the odds?

well alright, narrow it down because we are all North of the river. Further narrow it down that we are all tourists doing touristy things, then bumping in to someone we know to be In Seoul at the same time as us greatly reduces the odds to a point where a casual meeting is practically certain. still it was nice to see a dozen or so friendly defaces amongst the 10 million or so other friendly faces.

Since we haven't really done much this rptrip, we headed over to Myeondong for a little retail therapy. The focus was primarily on foot ware as amongst all the fashion shops is a healthy representation of.most sporting goods manufacturers. Being a Sunday, the joint was jumpin packed to the hilt with shoppers and to add to the atmosphere a great number of street vendors. We all came away with something formourmefforts, all be it with very little imagination.... I mean all we got were crocs. Not the sandal variety, sandals and shoes, but Crocs just the same.

Posing with the Taekwondo Troop

at least I had some nerve purchasing a pair of Nike runners I could never lose in a fit. It is my belief that to earn a "blue shirt" at the Ballarat aquTic centre one must sport a pair of brightly coloured forward. My fear is these may just put me in line for promotion....they are practically illuminois, not that I could have bought a pair of luminous runners in bright orange and yellow, but even I draw the line at glow in the dark footware

On the way home one aspect really highlighted the major difference of Seoul to Melbourne;

Melbourne is predominantly a 2 dimensional city. sure it has great tall buildings, but if you know the city at ground level, the you can basically know the city. apart from the underground and a underground tunnel here and there, one has to return to ground level to go up or down another building.

Seoul on the other hand not only has a far more extensive underground rail network, it also supports a great nUmber of underground shopping malls and interlinked tunnels meaning one can navigate vast areas of the city without ever seeing day light. Often these underground warrens do not reflect the street alignment above so one must really have a three dimensional internal map of the city to function effectively.

honestly I do not see Melbourne ever matching this diverse array of three dimensional communication and commuter networks within the city. I honestly think we can never call ourselves a Metropolis until we do..... Perhaps I may begin to believe when a raillink is finally established between the CBD and the airport.

 

 

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