Gyeongbokgung and Changing of the Guard

Aussie pal Gavin arranged to meet me today for a visit to Gyeongbokgung, the main palace of the Joseon dynasty, literally 'shining happiness palace'. It was first built in 1395, and after its completion the national capital was moved to Seoul. Its main gate, Gwanghwamun, is the one that was burned down by a deranged individual last year.

Gav was running late, but I was just in time to catch the changing of guard. (I actually caught it twice, so I have photos from two angles for your viewing pleasure.)









After the obligatory photo op, it's into the palace, which is actually very like the other two I've visited, Changdeokgung and Deoksugung (3 down, 2 to go--well, 3 if you add Unhyeongung). In essence, there is a main function hall, or throne room; sections for the king and king's servants and concubines; sections for the queen and her followers; a section where the king and queen can, er, get together; entertaning area; and ponds and gardens for relaxation, contemplation and reading. Here is Gavin posing in front of Geunjeongmun, the gate that leads to Geunjeongjeon, main throne hall. Below it are details of Geunjeongjeon:




The following shots are of features of the grounds at Gyeongbokgung, including the tile roofs, the reading pavilion in the middle of its own pond, and the entertainment pavilion Gyeonghoeru. This pavilion was reconstructed in 1867 and is "the largest elevated pavilion in Korea", whatever that means. It also "manifests the Oriental philosophy of the universe. The three bays at the center of the elevated floor symbolize heaven, earth and man, and the twelve bays outside them symbolize the twelve months of the year [or thirteen in some years, you know]. The outermost 24 columns symbolize the 24 solar terms that mark particular astronomical or natural events of each year."




Gyeongbokgung has something I haven't seen at the other palaces I've been to in Seoul--kid-friendly activities. You can rent child (or adult) sized outfits for picture-taking ...


... trace woodcuts of palace guards in uniform ...


... or even pose behind one of those plywood cutout figures where you stick your face through.


Of course, yours truly would never do something so touristy, or as Gavin put it, "at the height of poor taste."

A Softly Fallen, Silent Shroud of Seeded Snow

Friend and alert reader Rod sent me a link to this article http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5766595.ece, which explains the light coating of snow in Beijing the morning I left. I read a story on the drought in China Daily on the plane over, but it focused on payments to affected farmers and programs to increase irrigation. Though I suppose cloud-seeding does increase irrigation.

Since the Government calculated that the city had gone for more than 100 days without a drop of rain, residents have been complaining to one another about how the snowfalls that were a common occurrence even into the 1980s appeared to have halted, as drought and desertification have marched towards the city from the Gobi desert.

This bit is curious to me, as it rained persistently on my visit to Tianenmen Square and the Forbidden City on Thursday, five days before the seeded snow:


Tanner was amazed by the weather, and kept assuring me that it rains maybe once a month in Beijing. The snow apparently was an added attraction for tourists, according to the article, especially local tourists--I would imagine foreigners want clear, sunny skies and moderate temperatures.

An administrative official at the Forbidden City said: “Tourists will come in any weather, no matter if it snows or rains - people come anyway.”... A spokesman for the Badaling section of the Great Wall, about an hour from Beijing, said twice as many tourists as usual had come out to view the snow-covered site. “Even though it wasn't the weekend, about 4,000 tourists still showed up yesterday to watch the snow ... the scene is spectacular,” he said.

Beijing VS Seoul

Arrival/Departure: Both cities have clean, new airports that are well-designed and well-marked in English. Both have shiny new airport express trains that tie into the subway system. Immigration, etc, was similarly navigable. When I left baggage claim, no one even checked my claim stub, so I should have picked up some nicer stuff.

Subway: Seoul's subway trains are color-coded, e.g., a 2 line train will have green trim; Beijing maps aren't even sure what color the lines are--some maps show the airport line in yellow, some have 13 line in yellow.
Seoul's subway exits are clearly marked with a number; Beijing subway exits use a letter system.
Seoul subway prices are determined by the distance you travel, with a base fee of 900 W (USD 0.62); Beijing subway charges 2 Yuan per trip (USD 0.29).

First Impression: Both cities are large, bustling metropolises with modern infrastructure and massive skyscrapers. I knew Seoul would be a capitalistic, cosmopolitan city, I was surprised the extent to which Beijing is.

Geography: Seoul is built into the valleys and onto the sides of a dozen mountains, such that anyplace you go is uphill--both ways; Beijing is as flat as a kimchi pancake.

Vistas: In part because of this geography, any direction you look in Seoul you are almost guaranteed to see three things: craggy mountain peaks, high rise apartment blocks, construction cranes; since Beijing is so spread out, no two views are all that similar

Cleanliness: In Beijing, every city block seems to have one or two of the items below; in Seoul, you can walk a mile looking for one, or simply add your trash to the nearest pile of garbage bags on the sidewalk.


Orderliness: Seoul often seems chaotic, but people almost always follow the pedestrian Walk/Don't Walk signs, for instance, and jaywalking is uncommon; Beijing pedestrians actively ignore the signals, and two sets of fences are required on main arteries to prevent vehicular genocide.

Crosswalks: Both cities have pedestrian bridges or skywalks (below is a view from one to another next to the Capital Museum); however, Beijing also has lots of underground crosswalks, espeically in the central area around Tiananmen.


Taxis: In Beijing, most drivers are surrounded by a cage, something I have not seen in Seoul; Seoul cabbies start the meter the instant they take off, but Beijing hacks may go a third of a block before doing this. They can't speak English in either city.

Toilet facilities: While squat toilets are still a common occurrence in Seoul public facilities, they are ubiquitous in Beijing; further, bars and restaurants often provide the following guidance, and often more graphically:

Beijing Eats

From our first meal together on Wednesday night (lamb, chicken and green beans near Lama Temple) to our last on the following Monday night (Chinese hot pot in Liudaokou), Tanner and I ate like kings. Even if cheap kings: four courses and two or three 600 cc beers each consistently came in around 150 yuan. 150 yuan is USD 21.

China is a huge country, both in population and in geography, and has numerous ethnic communities with their own culinary traditions--there is no one Chinese cuisine.

Still, Peking Duck is an obligatory meal, and we had it twice in my one week visit. I mentioned the first time in a previous post, though I showed only the table. Here's what it looked like from outside:





This restaurant was in an amazingly decrepit hutong courtyard, but still attracted upscale clientele. It's not in Lonely Planet, but it's obviously in some guide, as there were three other groups of Westerners when we went. The food was delicious, but they charged extra for bringing more pancakes and sauce, and did not carve the duck in front of us.

Later in the week: a little cheaper, and equally as tasty, the Beijing Guolin Restaurant Liudaokou, across from TB's place, did it right. Picture 3 below shows the, uh, sommelier opening a 78 yuan bottle of baijo. Pricey at USD 11, but it still tasted like fingernail polish--about two steps down from soju. How that's possible remains a mystery to me.




On Friday night, we ate Sichuan, a spicy cuisine at a restaurant so popular among native Beijingers it has become a chain. Named Ba guo bu yi 巴国布衣 in Dongcheng, the entryway looks like this:




The ancient courtyard is now used for parking. Our meal, seriously spicy and spectacular, consisted of pork-stuffed lotus root, Shui zhu rou 水煮肉, which literally means 'water boil meat', Suan la tang 酸辣汤, 'sour spicy soup' (tang is also a word for soup in Korean), and at the back there, a bland but tasty eggplant dish.



For lunch on Saturday we ate Yunnan style at a place called Baoqin Dai Ethnic Restaurant 宝琴傣味餐馆. The pineapple at bottom right is filled with sweet rice, and the brown balls are delicately fried mashed potato balls. The strange furry-looking stuff is a shredded, preserved beef which is dipped in sauce and really, really tasty!


We toned down the spiciness at dinner, the star of which was the sliced pork brisket, sage-infused, on the far right.


Street food is standard Asian fare--I remember carrying a bowl out to the soup cart when it rolled by our house back when we lived in Bangkok. And I'm back at it, nearly forty years later. We bought desert waffles from the guy on the left, below. The right photo looks rather like an odeng stall in Seoul.




We went to Donghuamen Night Market near the famous Wangfujing Street where grilled food vendors are packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Just like in Korea, food on a stick is symbolized with a Chinese character that looks like a butterfly. Or maybe that's chunks of food on a stick.








Our last meal together was Chinese hot pot 火锅 (literally 'fire wok') on Monday night in his neighborhood, one of his favorite spots, and I can see why. Koreans also have hot pot and shabu shabu, but this was different from what I've had before. Mainly because of the brown dipping sauce, 麻酱 translated as sesame paste, spicy and fresh-tasting at the same time--since you add chopped cilantro. Did you know cilantro is also known as Chinese parsley and coriander? I did.

Cooking at the table is ordinary in Korea, but this was our only meal of this type. A hole in the table supported the large bowl laden with stock and seasonings: peppers, ginger, etc., as it cooked over a gas ring. Like with shabu, you order ingredients and dump them in to to cook, in stages.



I got the names, Chinese characters and translations from my Man in Beijing, Downtown Tanner Brown. Thanks, kid!

Beijing Street Scenes

It's everywhere you want to be!--even in the capital of Chinese communism, where not too long ago, Western banking was viewed as evil. My, how things change. Today's Beijing is in many ways like capitalistic Seoul: broad, bustling streets filled with cars; massive modern buildings; colorful nightlife areas; impromptu markets where vendors set up their shit before taking it down to look for greener pastures; traditional houses rubbing shoulders with skyscrapers; utter squalor living a block away from entrepreneurial wealth.










The subway system is clean, efficient and cheap. Here is a view of the platform of the Wudaokou station near Tanner's place.


Many of the buses are "cream-puffs", two-section affairs with an accordion-style articulation joint. In addition to the bus driver, there is a ticket-taker who sits at the intake door, which is in the center of the bus.



There is a fair amount of public art in Beijing, and it seems every government building is adorned with a statue of Chairman Mao:




Here are some artistic shop signs captured by Tanner:








You can shop for just about anything in Beijing ... even oranges.


The nightlife scene is fair, but doesn't being to compare to the twenty or so hotspots Seoul has. Clockwise from top left: a movie or TV scene being filmed in a boutique bar and shopping street similar to Insa-dong, in Dongcheng neighborhood; strip of bars in old Embassy section called Sanlitun; the Shichahai lakes area; a band playing in a bar at Shichahai.







Remember to click for the big picture! I have two more posts planned on my Beijing visit: a food photoessay, and a comparison of Seoul and Beijing based on one week's impressions.

It was cold the whole time I visited--of course, what can you expect in February? In fact, it snowed the Tuesday morning I left. This is a photo of a courtyard in TB's apartment complex: