Just got news via email that Dad has had some sort of accident whilst in SA and is now in hospital,in Adelaide waiting on an operation for a broken bone in his leg.naturally messages like this are light on detail, but if any friends reading this blog and have my sisters mobile number can you please text her and advise we will keep,Skype on as much as possible to hear from her esp from 6pm AEST each night.
Monday, 22 September 2014
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Sunday, 21 September 2014
The Whole 9 falls
Please note: we have returned to Seoul after 3 days largely without Internet. I have posted text for the 3 lost days and will add a few pics tomorrow when we have had tine to download and review the files from our cameras.
We woke to Muvva complaining of the beds. I have to admit the beds were harder than the floors at the Hanok. Amelie and Liz proved smart by sleeping on top of the doona for t tiny extra padding. Me I had drunk most of a bottle of Soju supposedly shared with Liz.
The biggest hit about the rooms was each had a spa..... In hindsight that is probably why we saw no more of mother, although I wonder what would have happened if she could not get out. We would have had another Whitney death in the bathtub, I guess.
Much to my disgust, but Amelie's delight, Liz suggested breakfast at Dunkin Donut. It sounds every bit a sickly sweet as you could imagine.... And that's the coffee.
I think that is why Muvva decided to provide the entertainment. Heading towards the bathroom, she became fascinated with the figures advertising male and female. It was about a metre tall silhouette split in half with each side displaying the sex one is to aim for. In her stupor she missed the little step hitting the ground like a sacked quarter back. Luckily neither skin or bones were broken. Perhaps a bruise or two, thankfully that was all.
A short walk followed to wear off some of the sugar. We visited the Andong Hemp shop. Fascinating. They appeared to be mainly outer Han bok garments, much like Formal Kimono in the rich decoration. The other abundant clothing seemed to be priestly vestments. Again the embroidery and decoration was impressive and lavish.
No trip to Andong, for a home brewer such as myself could resist visiting the home of Andong Soju. It is not rice wine, but I had thought it may have been made from starchy vegetables such as potato. The soju at Andong does seem to be made from a wheat mash malted and concentrated/dehydrated. This is then ground, mixed into a wash, fermented, then distiller.
The result is a clear liquid with a hint of sweetness to the spirit unlike whiskey that has less flavour until stored in oak barrels. This cask storage provides flavour and the golden colour of whiskey. Most soju is a colourless liquid served at a variety of concentrations depending on quality and age. Alcohol concentrations are roughly 45, 25, 12-15 percent concentration. at this stage I do not know how the Soju is aged as the higher concentrations are still clear. They simply have more of a gentle burn due to the higher alcohol content.
The. Used at the Soju Distillery, also covered food. Muvva observed that much of Asia has placed importance on the aesthetic presentation of food. It can have a high ceremonial value so presentation becomes important. It may cause interest that making "fake" food has become a big industry too. Replicas of famous dishes are replicated faithfully, usually in some form of resin material. The models are uncanny and loom as inviting as the real deal.
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| A mask started at the Mask ?Museum, HaHoe village and completed on the bus to Seoul |
Most commonly these fake dishes are used as displays I. Restaurant windows making is very easy for dumb tourists, or illiterate people every opportunity to order from a visual menu. I am sure the display acts as good as any advertising, with the quality of display inducing people to come in. In museums it helps make displays very realistic, so you could imagine how impressive the feast presented to Queen Elizabeth II on her visit in 1999 was both I reality and recreation.
Our visit to Andong was completed by a trip out to the Hanji, or paper making area. Like many specialist paper areas in Korea, paper is made from Mulberry bark. Depending on how the cellulose material is treated, a great variety of products can be made. Fine paper, as we appreciate back home, hand made versions with a marbling effects, watermarks and decorative elements make very elaborate displays. papers amused in everything from screens, to wrappings.
A high grade form of board is also produced I. A huge range of products. dare I say it is a high grade papier mâché, but this does not do it credit. Very thing from figurines, to strong furniture is produced by this board. Many jewellery boxes, serving trays/tables and elaborate sideboards can be made for this material.
Finally elaborate materials and threads can be produced. From rough hessian like fibres to fine materials resembling cotton, or hemp clothing. Most commonly one sees, socks and underwear on sale as they are light and cool to wear against the skin, but at the Hanji centre some spectacular designer wear was on display in rich hues of naturally dyed fabrics.
Amelie really wanted to make paper as we did during out last trip. Unfortunately being a Sunday no paper making was in progress. Instead we contented ourselves with some of the manual crafty activities. We made scroll posters from scratch, making collage pictures and adding our own calligraphy. Finally the wooden scroll ends were added to allow display. Muvva ambitiously chose a water Lilly pattern that proved quite elaborate and showed just how long it has been since art class at school.
Judging by the fun all of us had creating our pieces, the activity easily made up for not making our own paper.
Our day finished by finally climbing aboard the bus to head home to Seoul. Again the bus trip is not as daunting as first thought. Much of the trip is on high speed expressway but there is enough to see of the countryside as we travel. If a mountain is encountered, no problem.... Tunnel through so no sharp bends or slowing down is required. such is the Korean way.
Return to Seoul was not to the Gangnam (yes, just like the song) bus terminal, but the other. We had already determined rather than depend on the subway, we should take the taxi. We were not fully cognisant of where this bus terminal is, nor could we easily see the rail link as at Gangnam so it turns out a taxi was the best option.
Mother still had the address card in her wallet so it proved no problem for the driver to enter thus into his ?gPS an off we went. The trip took about 39 mins and at least 15 kilometres, perhaps closer to 20. So guess how much the fare was as we alighted.... Yep 15000 won or a little over $15 Australian.
A night on the floor
Well Muvva did it. Spent the night on the floor without a single drink.... That we know of, who knows what she smuggled in with her.
A night on the floor in the traditional Hanok proved not to be too much for mother we had the usual thin bed mattress and supplemented mother with a little camp mattress and she managed to sleep the entire night and stand up I. The morning. Perhaps that was the secret. She didn't have to get up I the middle of the night.
The Hanok owner proved to be most helpful and allowed us to leave our bags in the room while we further explored Hahoe village. We took the ferry across the river and climbed the cliffs overlooking the town to gain a wonderful early morning view of the village and surrounding area.
On return to the village a real wedding was almost beginning. Although Hahoe is a tourist village, it is also a living village. This time the wedding was not staged for tourists. Judging by the cars rolling in and parking in the village, not a kilometre away I the public area, I'd say this was a prestigious wedding too. The catering alone had all visitors hoping for a secret invite.
Soon it was time to leave. Catching the shuttle bus to the mask museum. Upon learning we were from Australia the ticket lady instead we head up to level 2. There turned out to be a display of Aboriginal Australian objects.
The lovely lady at tourist information wrote down instructions to the bus driver that we wanted to stop at the paper museum. He even nodded knowingly when shown the note. That knowing nod turned out to be, I won't let these foreigners tell me what to do, cos when we thought we saw the sign to the paper, he sailed last full throttle, obviously ignoring or request to stop. A pity for Amelie as this was the one place she wanted to see in Andong.
Instead we ended up in the centre of town, trying to locate the hotel Liz booked when no one around spoke English. Eventually we found the hotel, dumped bags in rooms and took a taxi back out to Bongjeongsa Temple to cross another off Muvvas bucket list. Bongjeongsa is not the biggest or most elaborate template, but it does boast the oldest building on Korea and features early I. The list of national treasures.
It was there that yet again we came across the disbelief that Amelie is with us after all we are westerners and she is obviously Korean. People were keen to learn that she is our adopted daughter and amazed that my mother is travelling with us. That are thanking us for adopting her. For us it is the opposite we thank Korea for allowing us to become parents.
Back in Andong city cam the opportunity to try the beef. Andong is rightly proud of the beef they produce. I'm sure the cattle here gave walked less than 50 steps in their entire life. The beef is heavily marbled with fat, tender and flavoursome. We chose the restaurant however because of the tables. This turned out to be the only one with chair height tables as mother could not cope with eating off the floor this time. It turned out to be just fine and a most beautiful "galbi" or Korean beef BBQ.
That proved to be the last we saw of Mucva. We have two rooms at the hotel and she has one all to herself. I think she relished the idea of a big bed and TV both under her exclusive control, not to mention a spa. If there are aching bones, they'll all be forgotten tomorrow.
On the Road Again - Are you our housekeeper? Friday 19 Sep
Please note: we have returned to Seoul after 3 days largely without Internet. I have posted text for the 3 lost days and will add a few pics tomorrow when we have had tine to download and review the files from our cameras.
With the best of intentions for an early start, we left about half an hour later. This meant not quite making the connections Liz had designed for the bus to Andong, so we could try to make the mask performance at HaHoe village. Further delays were incurred locating correct intercity bus terminals and once in Andong, finding the bus terminus to take us out to HaHoe Village.Despite all this, we still managed to see the mask performance after all.
Gotta love the luxury coaches they have here in Korea. Where most coaches have a centre aisle with 4 seats a cross, the luxury liners here have only 3 large recliners across. Bliss..... Except when you are seated next to a seven year old.... Are we there yet? What a pity I didn't bring the noise cancelling headset.
Arriving at Andong bus station, the next difficulties were working out bus link to Hahoe village and from there, how to get 1.2klm from ticket office to the village, turns out there is a shuttle bus that runs roughly every 10 mins. Even then it's jam packed.
Time to relax and tour the village, right? Wrong, next comes working out where our Hanok Accommodation will be and if we can store bags. What's that, hmm the mask performance starts at two. Ok, good, we can leave our bags here and the man will Hanok will collect them for us. Great all we need do is walk 159 m that way.
Actually the mask performance was very entertaining. Traditional music, drums, gongs and a flute like instrument that sounds much like the chanter from a bagpipe, halfway through I was dragged up to dance. Apart from the question where are you from? The rest of the commentary was in Korean with moments of laughter, so what I think was said was watch how we get theses foreigners moving like the hippos from Fantasia. I must've been accurate cos Amelie laughed her head off at Abba.
The next game to play was wander the village looking for our bed. The map provided wasn't exactly accurate so matching it to real life proved a test. When we thought we found the right place no one was home and in the yard next door the people were disinterested. Besides the street numbers didn't match so why not try looking for them.... Well they didn't match any version of any map. We resorted to the phone. The owner came to save us and lead the weary party back to the place we suspected I the first place.... We recognised it by our bags sitting in the room.
Hanok are the traditional buildings of Korea. A number of buildings for a rough courtyard. Each wing is autonomous, generally following Confucian design with wings for each sex and a cooking area and storage. The living quarters have two sections, a more open, wooden floor sumner, or casual area and an inner more cloistered sleeping area. Paper doors allow the outside world to be closed out and heating us supplied under floor.
Thin mattresses are rolled out to sleep on with doonas of varying thickness seasonally adding to heat insulation. Will reserve judgement on the experience to the morning, when we see if mother can get herself off the floor. For me I'm quite toasty as I write this blog.
Dinner proved to be yummy. We had the famous Andong spicy chicken. Small pieces of chicken seemingly stirr fried with lots of fresh veggies, and spices, especially large chunk of dried chillies. It us the mixed in a soy sauce based sauce and list of noodles. It was home cooking at its best. Both delicious and filling. Muvva must be adapting too. She on,y complained of burning sensations around her mouth and ate more of the veggies and rice, but essentially ate what we ate. Well done Muvva, you are trying so hard.
Morning addendum, ask me if I was warm enough with the underfloor heating. Well I left my drink bottle on the floor and all I need do for a cuppa this morning was add a tea bag. Toasty!
Thursday, 18 September 2014
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To some today will seem to have seem to be a little quiet.
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| Hanbok Shopping Gwangjang Market |
In the morning we split again for Liz to head off and purchase tickets to Miso Theatre. the half-tix place excelled itself today. The promotion for subway tickets and Seoul Tower has finished, to be replaced by an even better one...... That's right the selfie-stick. As it bloody mobile phones and selfies have become ubiquitous. nooks there is a gadget designed to get the ultimate selfie shot is any circumstance. whT disturbs me most is that I have only see them used for taking selfies... You'd thing the extra height or reach could be useful to get an unusual view.... No all you ever see them used for is ..... bloody Selfies.
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| street food Gwanjang style |
I. The meantime three of us made directly to Gwangjang Market. some may remember this market as it was featured on the Hairy Bikers Asia Tour program and food is one of the famous sections to this market. However before the food, the girls, particularly Amelie, wanted to shop for hanbok. Gwangjang is the place in Seoul you. Use visit if you want to buy Traditional Han-book. Even though Amelie has enough to,last until she is grown-up, item two on the bucket list was to choose her very own Hanbok.
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| Lunch Anyone? GwangJang Market |
I must admit she chose very well, choosing a purple dress, with aqua jacket, highlighted by pink patterns. But the frenzy dis not stop there, we also had to choose accessories, petticoats, bags, hats, hair-pins, socks, and shoes.... Well not the shoes. Muvva got in on the act buying hanbok so for her other two granddaughters Riley and Cassie.of course with accompanying bling.
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| noodle and Mandu Soup, Great Street Food for 5 Bucks |
Mum added to the frenzy with a couple of items for her and dammit I got in on the act whe I spotted a special decorative amulets to match the hanbok she has at home. This was made of burgundy silk tresses and a pewter plaque highlighted by a gemstone amulet.
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| craft activities at Insadong |
To cool our smoking wallets, we strolled over to the food section to check out both food stalls and street food. the street food here is really good and cooked fresh in front of,you. We settled on Mandu soup, Mandu are dumplings, in this case stuffed with kimchi and tofu, at other times various meats etc. A lovely hot broth seasoned with vegetables is accompanied by a variety of kimchi side dishes and a lovely a seasoned sauce made of soy, sesame oil, spring onions amongst some other spices I may have missed.
After lunch we split again, the girls to head home to rest before a late evening theatre and I headed East to try find a fly fishing store I had heard about during our planning with KIA consulting and Maria Camaretto. Turn out it too,a little finding as the ad was very much residential and the shop was hidden below an apartment complex. the owner and I shared tales of fly-fishing in New Zealand as he had voted the North Island last year. Resisting the urge to go totally wild, I came away with a couple of souvenirs, a bit of fly-tying equipment and a Czech nymph rod. After all the correct number is N+1 where the integer Nissan the number you have already.
The girls headed to Miso theatre. Being a 'bloke' I wasn't really keen to go so I was let off. Sound as if it was a mistake as it was a lewd story of entrapment of a philandering husband taught a stern lesson before repenting and returning to his lovely wife,I went for about an hour and the traditional music and dance was interspersed with the plot line, making a performance that Amelie enjoyed thoroughly. So it was well designed to keep a seven year old interested and enthral led.... Despite the story-line.
The return home was met with a flurry of packing as tomorrow we head to Andong for two nights. It may be a little delay before the next post as we may not have access to internet, so look toward Monday for much action including the Andong sojourn, followed our lunch at Eastern and reuniting with some Han-Ho families.
Grumpmas found the go-go juice
Something has surged through Grumpmas blood as for the first time this trip, this morning it was Grumpma striding out making the pace. All that relentless exercise has paid off as she is showing signs of increased fitness, or has she simply swallowed two days of pills by mistake.
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| Gyeongbokgung Palace |
Our morning trip aimed for Gyeonbokung Palace to watch the changing of the guard ceremony and to explore the grounds. One of my personal favourite places in Seoul lies within the palace grounds is the Gyeonghoeru Pavillion.
this stately Pavillion lies just to the West of the main palace residences and official buildings. It is surrounded by a large artificial pond/lake. If only this lake was filled with trout instead of carp and the Kings Pavillion would make a perfect casting platform. There actually is a salmonides specks native to Korean waters, it has an orange to gold stripe along its body similar to a rainbow trout, which is crossed by about 5 wide bars of blCk vertical lines. It can grow up to 9 or 10 pounds.
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| Changing The Guard Ceremony, Gyeonbokung |
As it is practically located In The North East corner of the palace grounds we also took in the National Folk Museum. It has three main display halls showing, the history of Korea, Korean life, mainly typical,village life form roughly the 1600's to early 19000's and the third was more aspects of culture such as education, writing, health, science etc. outside are a few Hanok buildings. If you have not been to Korea before and want a bit of an easy crash course then the folk museum is a great place to start.
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| The Ultimate Fishing Shack |
Lunch was chosen as a less spicy Korean dish adapted from japan, kimbap. Most would look at these and immediately call them sushi, or Nori rolls. However kimbap are slightly different. Firstly they are larger in diameter than most nori and usually longer I length. I could make plenty of crude puns, at this point, but it is a family blog.
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| Folk Museum, Dondaemun |
Amelie had lost her diamente head band, so a trip back to Insadong was next to allow the girls to shop for Naff. Given a moments invitation to go check the music stores for ukuleles, the smoking trail there took 0.000000000000000000000328 light seconds, only because I had to stop for the traffic lights. For some, the expression is pig in mud. Imagine a building about the same size of Myer filled with little music shops of instruments of every kind, although how they get grand pianos into such a rat run of corridors half blocked with the next shipment is beyond me.
I haven't bought anything yet. Most "foreign" brands are about the same, if not dearer than in Australia. However many ,Korean, Chinese and Indonesian brands do seem to be much cheaper for equivalent such as solid mahogany. Liz and I will make a trip there after the upcoming ukulele festival.
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| Folk Museum, Gyeonbokung |
It is amazing how plans can changed especially in the face of eminent disaster. This tale could only happen in Korea. Liz lost the mobile phone we had rented. After taking a call from me it was put back into her shorts pocket. When sitting and chatting to a local, it simply dropped out of her pocket. Now if this were Melbourne, that would probably be that. One lost phone and most likely a hefty bill, cos tge finder chose to have a spree. None of that happened here. I called Liz's phone and in a broken English/Korean conversation worked out the phone was in a shop in insadong. Typically Korean, when Liz thought she should buy something from the shop to say thank you, the owner tried to give her a discount. So often Korean people are considerate.
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Of course guys changed plans for dinner which turned to bibimbap in insadong. It turns out, once the gochugang was scrapped off to be mothers favourite food to date. Just ad wellfor what was to follow, a night trip to Dongdaemun. Boy has this area changed since our first visit. Of course there are the night markets of clothes and food stalls, there are numerous multi story department stores, but mos impressively has arisen an eclectic, futuristic set of buildings found in the. Culture park. There are museums, galleries and a most exciting "Designer shp/ dept store". It is full of cute, sometimes innovative, definately highly functional purpose built gadgets and day to day objects. Everything has a particular flair. Some is not cheap, but there are times when one appreciates a little more than market naff.
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| Dongdaemun Gate |
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| The flowing curves of the Cultural centre, Dongdaemun |
Liz and I ended up with a pair of shoulder satchels that are proving much mure practical than our Aussie Crumpler bags when doing a lot of walking around the city.
Finally before the clock strikes 10 it may be time to get Amelie off to bed as with tonight's late night, we will know allllllll about it tomorrow I am sure.
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