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Sunday, I took the morning to do necessary things like go to the supermarket and do enough of my laundry so that I wouldn't have to worry about doing it until I get to Japan (I have no idea where I'd get my laundry done here and the hotel's service is so expensive). The maids and I here at the hotel are locked in a passive aggressive struggle btw - they think the room should be about 68 degrees and I think it should be at about 71-72 so every day when I come back to the room (they are apparently not allowed to skip a room since when I did my laundry they were pissed off that I had the do not disturb light on the whole morning) it's down to 68 degrees. I also only crack my window shade open a bit because I'm not a fan of natural light in my bedroom but they keep raising all the blinds. I have a feeling they'd be scolding me if they could.
In the afternoon, I headed to the National Museum. It is a huge, three story building though most of what I was interested in was on the first floor. I took tons of photos of every single artefact that might be related to my dissertation along with their descriptions in the hopes that I can track down their site reports at some point (and, you know, gain access to the museum in the first place to look at them). It was amazing to see the Silla crowns and so many of the artefacts I've been staring at in books lately. Even seeing a triple ring bell up close hasn't helped me figure out how they were made though. I was there for three or four hours, and my feet were killing me but I was determined to get to Gwangjang market which apparently sells textiles, but in the evening it turns into a giant criss cross of food stalls. Their big seller is mung bean pancakes, but there were also what seemed to be mini sashimi bars and piles of smoked pork - mostly their feet, noses and faces. It was really crowded and noisy which wasn't what I was looking for at all so I ended up sitting down at the first person's stall which didn't have any other customers. This could have been a bad thing, but all the food tasted good to me so I have no idea why I was the only customer. Anyway, I had some soju with the meal because that is what I was told went with mung bean pancakes (and since I only just looked up what a mung bean was to write this post...). I'd never had soju before and while it has a pretty normal, rice alcohol taste, I was kind of surprised that it was 16%. No wonder the lady running the stall was shocked when I downed it like water. Anyway, the mung bean pancakes were delicious and very filling. The lady also gave me some pieces of a kimchee pancake and when I told her it was delicious she gave me even more. So, I was stuffed and pleasantly buzzed by the time I finished. I happily made my way back to my hotel and got some work done before going to sleep.
Monday, I woke up really early to head to the archaeological firm to do my research. The trip was made more complicated by me dragging along the XRF scanner on my little pull cart necessitating discovering where every elevator in the subway was. I won't bore you with the details of my research, but they placed an entire sword in front of me at one point - so awesome! But I have to go back again assuming I can get back to them before I go. On my way back, I got taken in hand by a little old Korean lady who actually grabbed my arm and dragged me through various elevators and made me sit in the elderly people chairs with her on the train (another old lady told me I had a pretty face... I feel as though Korean standards of beauty are broad enough that I might even fall into them a bit. How odd.) I also met a member of a West African dance troupe - she showed me her appearance on Korean tv on her phone while we rode the subway. I should mention that reading Harry Potter on the subway is pretty much guaranteed to get you talked to. I've had two guys start conversations after reading over my shoulder. I really must remember not to read anything weird if people are going to rudely read what I read.
After that, I had to send some emails, hit the supermarket for things I forgot, and do some work. I ended up grabbing popeye's for dinner. I was curious to see if changing to a western meal would change my bowel movements, but it doesn't really seem to have had an effect (I have a good constitution so I haven't been having diarrhoea but I've been running closer to it than I would like.) Since it made no difference, I went back to Korean food tonight and had... I forget the full name but it was basically kimchee rice with a fried egg on top and hot buckwheat noodles in a spicy broth on the side.
Today, since I was unexpectedly at liberty, I determined to go to one of my top destinations in Seoul, the Hanseong Baekje Museum. I had read about the excavations around the museum before and thought they sounded really interesting, plus there were the remains of the fortress there as well so I was rather interested in seeing both the museum and the remains. The museum is all the way to the east of the city in the old Olympic Park. The park is still used for exercise today and seems really popular with the elderly, possibly because there's outdoor exercise equipment. It was actually a pretty cool sculpture park, or at least, a weird one. I hit the museum and merely intended to ask them where the fortress and nearby tombs were, but the volunteer there was very determined to give me a tour of the museum in English. I went along with it and it worked out well once I informed him I really was going to be taking several pictures of every bronze and bead in the museum. There's more replicas in that museum than they label, but something I really liked is that they made replicas of all the bronze tools and placed them next to the artefacts they were based on. That was pretty neat to see. Once we finished our tour he brought me back to the volunteer area where he and three other ladies helped me figure out how to get to the nearby (well, within several kilometres) tombs and the fortress. They asked me where I was going first and I said the tombs, but first I should probably get lunch since I was hungry (it was nearly 1pm by then). One of the women ran out of the room and the others told me she was the "egg mother". I have no idea what that means, but she returned with a hard boiled egg for me and a cup full of fresh-from-a-garden grape tomatoes. Those tomatoes were utterly delicious. I paired them with an onigiri to make a fantastic lunch which I ate while walking to the tombs. The Paekche tombs near there are ironically enough from the Unified Silla period and are therefore Silla kingdom tombs, but they were pretty cool to see nonetheless. The site was crawling in ants, dragonflies and cicadas and the path had very uneven flagstones so I ended up nearly spraining my ankle several times (it is not very happy with me right now) and killing a lot of random ants. After the tombs, I walked back to the Olympic park and found the fortress. It's walls are slopped, but at the top it is at least 9 metres tall which in the high heat was a bitch to climb. I had a fantastic view though and it really is an impressive fortress. About half way around it, I visited a preserved pit house excavation site and even though there was another museum on the other side of the park, I decided to call it a day before I started limping. I headed back to Seoul Station where I installed myself in a coffee shop to get some work done until 6 when ate dinner then headed back to my hotel.
In the afternoon, I headed to the National Museum. It is a huge, three story building though most of what I was interested in was on the first floor. I took tons of photos of every single artefact that might be related to my dissertation along with their descriptions in the hopes that I can track down their site reports at some point (and, you know, gain access to the museum in the first place to look at them). It was amazing to see the Silla crowns and so many of the artefacts I've been staring at in books lately. Even seeing a triple ring bell up close hasn't helped me figure out how they were made though. I was there for three or four hours, and my feet were killing me but I was determined to get to Gwangjang market which apparently sells textiles, but in the evening it turns into a giant criss cross of food stalls. Their big seller is mung bean pancakes, but there were also what seemed to be mini sashimi bars and piles of smoked pork - mostly their feet, noses and faces. It was really crowded and noisy which wasn't what I was looking for at all so I ended up sitting down at the first person's stall which didn't have any other customers. This could have been a bad thing, but all the food tasted good to me so I have no idea why I was the only customer. Anyway, I had some soju with the meal because that is what I was told went with mung bean pancakes (and since I only just looked up what a mung bean was to write this post...). I'd never had soju before and while it has a pretty normal, rice alcohol taste, I was kind of surprised that it was 16%. No wonder the lady running the stall was shocked when I downed it like water. Anyway, the mung bean pancakes were delicious and very filling. The lady also gave me some pieces of a kimchee pancake and when I told her it was delicious she gave me even more. So, I was stuffed and pleasantly buzzed by the time I finished. I happily made my way back to my hotel and got some work done before going to sleep.
Monday, I woke up really early to head to the archaeological firm to do my research. The trip was made more complicated by me dragging along the XRF scanner on my little pull cart necessitating discovering where every elevator in the subway was. I won't bore you with the details of my research, but they placed an entire sword in front of me at one point - so awesome! But I have to go back again assuming I can get back to them before I go. On my way back, I got taken in hand by a little old Korean lady who actually grabbed my arm and dragged me through various elevators and made me sit in the elderly people chairs with her on the train (another old lady told me I had a pretty face... I feel as though Korean standards of beauty are broad enough that I might even fall into them a bit. How odd.) I also met a member of a West African dance troupe - she showed me her appearance on Korean tv on her phone while we rode the subway. I should mention that reading Harry Potter on the subway is pretty much guaranteed to get you talked to. I've had two guys start conversations after reading over my shoulder. I really must remember not to read anything weird if people are going to rudely read what I read.
After that, I had to send some emails, hit the supermarket for things I forgot, and do some work. I ended up grabbing popeye's for dinner. I was curious to see if changing to a western meal would change my bowel movements, but it doesn't really seem to have had an effect (I have a good constitution so I haven't been having diarrhoea but I've been running closer to it than I would like.) Since it made no difference, I went back to Korean food tonight and had... I forget the full name but it was basically kimchee rice with a fried egg on top and hot buckwheat noodles in a spicy broth on the side.
Today, since I was unexpectedly at liberty, I determined to go to one of my top destinations in Seoul, the Hanseong Baekje Museum. I had read about the excavations around the museum before and thought they sounded really interesting, plus there were the remains of the fortress there as well so I was rather interested in seeing both the museum and the remains. The museum is all the way to the east of the city in the old Olympic Park. The park is still used for exercise today and seems really popular with the elderly, possibly because there's outdoor exercise equipment. It was actually a pretty cool sculpture park, or at least, a weird one. I hit the museum and merely intended to ask them where the fortress and nearby tombs were, but the volunteer there was very determined to give me a tour of the museum in English. I went along with it and it worked out well once I informed him I really was going to be taking several pictures of every bronze and bead in the museum. There's more replicas in that museum than they label, but something I really liked is that they made replicas of all the bronze tools and placed them next to the artefacts they were based on. That was pretty neat to see. Once we finished our tour he brought me back to the volunteer area where he and three other ladies helped me figure out how to get to the nearby (well, within several kilometres) tombs and the fortress. They asked me where I was going first and I said the tombs, but first I should probably get lunch since I was hungry (it was nearly 1pm by then). One of the women ran out of the room and the others told me she was the "egg mother". I have no idea what that means, but she returned with a hard boiled egg for me and a cup full of fresh-from-a-garden grape tomatoes. Those tomatoes were utterly delicious. I paired them with an onigiri to make a fantastic lunch which I ate while walking to the tombs. The Paekche tombs near there are ironically enough from the Unified Silla period and are therefore Silla kingdom tombs, but they were pretty cool to see nonetheless. The site was crawling in ants, dragonflies and cicadas and the path had very uneven flagstones so I ended up nearly spraining my ankle several times (it is not very happy with me right now) and killing a lot of random ants. After the tombs, I walked back to the Olympic park and found the fortress. It's walls are slopped, but at the top it is at least 9 metres tall which in the high heat was a bitch to climb. I had a fantastic view though and it really is an impressive fortress. About half way around it, I visited a preserved pit house excavation site and even though there was another museum on the other side of the park, I decided to call it a day before I started limping. I headed back to Seoul Station where I installed myself in a coffee shop to get some work done until 6 when ate dinner then headed back to my hotel.
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