Scenario: I have a hideous chair that's been obnoxiously occupying my apartment/doubling as a computer desk since October. I recently reorganized my apartment and have eliminated all need for said hideous chair, however, living in Mokdong I've observed that when someone needs to dispose of large items, it's necessary to call some sort of disposal place that will help you procure a "it's legal to dispose of this item at the trash bins" yellow sticker to affix to your items. Needless to say I have no idea how to do this, so I get up early this morning and just run my hideous chair out to the trash bins, hoping to escape all notice. No dice. Predictably, the old guy who handles security in my buildng comes booking out, yelling at me in Korean. I make the typical excuses for not having any idea what he's saying. He manages to convey to me that it will cost me a whopping 5,000 won to dispose of this chair, whereupon I sign to him that this is totally cool and he should hold on - I'm going to get money from my apartment upstairs since I had the dog out for a walk and didn't have any cash. (He probably got about 1% of this.) I emerge with a 10,000 won bill - the smallest I had - which he kindly runs to the convenience store to make change for... only 3,000 won, as it turns out. I thank him, take the dog for a walk, and return to the building bearing a peace offering. Starbucks Green Tea Latte: Universal Symbol For I'm-Sorry-For-Being-The-Ignorant-Foreigner-Thanks-For-Not-Ripping-Me-Off-Anyway-No-Hard-Feelings-Even-Though-You-Yelled-At-Me? Perhaps.

Ah, the joys of living in a foreign country for over a year when I have neglected to invest the necessary energy it would take to learn basic Korean. Where all else fails, there's Starbucks.

The beauty of living in Asia is the fact that lack of inclination can be easily overcome by sheer proximity. Had you told my twenty-year old self that I would be living abroad and traveling widely in eight years, and asked that past self where I guessed I would have gone, Vietnam would not have made the list of top twenty, possibly top fifty. It’s certainly not that I didn’t acknowledge Vietnam’s value as a place visit, it’s just that my former self was utterly (now I can say I am only partially) beholden to the allure of romance, and Vietnam had never been associated particularly strongly with romance in my mind. (Having visited it, I can say in all honesty that it still isn’t, but it is has at least solidified into a real place rather than just a name I’ve read in history books or seen on maps and reality has its own gritty romance.) What led me to Vietnam was novelty and convenience, more than anything… although a rumor of low-priced custom tailors also had its allure. I suppose people have visited places for less noble reasons, though at present I’m at a loss to imagine them.

Despite my shameful lack of curiosity about Vietnam prior to the trip, I was determined to fully experience it and make up for lost time. Lest I repeat the mistake of underscheduling myself and then leaving a place feeling like I’d left it sadly unexplored as I’d done in Malaysia, I made an ambitious plan to cover Vietnam top to bottom. I bought a guide book, perused it in advance, and booked a flight arriving in Hanoi and leaving from Ho Chi Minh (aka Saigon). I had roughly 11 days and 1,500 km to travel in order to get onto my plane and back to Seoul. I also had the company of my very good friends from Seoul, Allyson, Bethany, and Gordon, and a friend from home, Jess, who came up from Australia to adventure with us.

I'll post retrospectively on the approximate dates of the trip, so check back periodically for the full story as it goes up incrementally.

( Where in the world? )

We were up bright and early to take a van to the airport - having had our train/bus experience, we were determined to make this transition an easy and quick one.

Oh, how the universe delights at our expense!

Our quick plane ride turned into a five-hour odyssey at the airport which involved boarding, getting seated and settled, disembarking, waiting in the lobby white-knuckled after being told that our plane was grounded because of technical difficulties (hoping against hope for a new plane!!) then being re-boarded... on the *same* plane which had supposedly been repaired. I have never been more grateful to land intact as I was when we touched ground in Ho Chi Minh City.

Meanwhile I had to bid farewell to Jess, who got on a different flight to ensure that she wouldn't miss her connecting flight to Perth because of the delay. We got teary-eyed, we laughed, we hugged... and after she left I discovered a card she'd stealthily slipped into my baggage. In short - Jess rules.

After finally arriving in Saigon, we took a taxi into the city in the waning light, looking for a hotel. We'd opted to wing it this time, so we directed the driver to take us to De Tham - hotbed of foreign-friendly accommodation. After a rather cursory search, Gordon and I directed our tired crew (lugging baggage considerably bloated by our loot in Hoi An) to a mid-range hotel that didn't seem infested by anything, cleaned ourselves up, and hit the town. Our first night consisted of half-hearted bar hopping through De Tham, with stops at the sprawling corner-squatter pub Allez Boo and many more:

The quest for a decent bloody mary was for naught, but we managed to stay out till late hours talking with fellow travelers.

Our final day in Vietnam, January 3, was jam-packed with sightseeing. We walked into the inner city (Ho Chi Minh - at least the corner that we explored - was easy to negotiate on foot with a guidebook and a good innate sense of direction) to see the Reunification Palace, The War Remnants Museum, Notre Dame Cathedral, and what was once the Champs Elysee of the East, Nguyen Hue. (These days it's little more than an unexceptional boutique and hotel-lined avenue.)

After a delay getting into The War Remnants Museum on account of our arrival during lunch break, we stood outside the grounds of the Reunification Palace without much inclination to go inside until it was time to go back.

My greatest realization upon visiting the War Remnants Museum was how horribly ignorant I am of the Vietnam War. It’s shocking, really, that pretty much all I knew about it, I learned from Forrest Gump. I wonder, in retrospect, if there was some deficiency in my schooling, i.e. that the war was still so fresh in people’s minds and the scholarship still so controversial that no one cared to dwell on it a great deal and consequently my memory has glossed over the perfunctory lessons we had on its minutiae. More likely I’ve just forgotten the time spent on it like I’ve forgotten much of my high school history studies, including the name of my grey-bearded teacher and the exact definition of a Federalist (which I do recall never being quite clear on).

As shocking and heart-rending it was to see some of the things that happened during this war (brutality on both sides, chemical warfare, innocents caught in the crossfire, etc.), it was good to reeducate myself on what I'd missed. The most moving part of the experience was seeing a series of mounted pictures detailing childrens' reactions to the war.

We made our way to the Notre Dame Cathedral, very different from its namesake in Paris:


I was amused by the blending of cultures, including an old Vietnamese woman in a rice hat selling baguettes and pate off her bicycle in the street.

We stopped for a bite at one of the fast-food pho places on Nyugen Hue before heading back to pack up, check out, and say farewell to Vietnam. (Not before purchasing an absurd amount of Vietnamese coffee at Highlands - the Vietnamese Starbucks - and trying to clear corners of our overstuffed luggage in which to cram it.

After a back-and-forth adventure to the airport (I forgot my passport at the hotel and Gordon heroically volunteered to accompany back to get it), we boarded our plane at around 11 PM on January 4th.

In a few short hours we were back in Korea, back home, and back to work - truly a whirlwind adventure.

Days 6-9

We had planned to spend a good portion of our time in Hoi An (December 29-January 3), as it boasted some nice beaches and the ultimate draw -- custom tailors willing to make just about anything in short order and for relatively cheap prices.

Our first day in Hoi An began with scouting the town for the tailors we'd patronize. We'd read up on the myriad of choices and the necessity of asking many questions, requesting to see finished work, and buying pieces one at a time to test for quality. All of our good intentions went out the window when we hit the street. We were accosted by an over-friendly motormouth of a woman almost immediately, who dragged us into her shop and had us pouring over samples and books, gushing all the while about how she'd take care of us and we should order everything through her. Emma and her entourage of seeming-spies who had infiltrated all of Hoi An, would become a fixture of the next 4 days. Some of us moved on from Emma's, but a brave few stayed and placed orders.

We were finally able to extricate ourselves from Emma's clutches and made our way through the streets lined with tailors of every imaginable permutation:

It was an adult version of kid-in-a-candy-store. We hardly knew where to begin. The facades of stores:

led to narrow, waterstained alleys:

and quaint back rooms where the evidence of daily life was everywhere apparent:

The main street of the tailor district, Le Loi, was the only landmark in a sea of dizzying similarity and the lodestone by which we negotiated Hoi An:


The city itself is full of character and hidden gems. It's famous for its French colonial influence, so it's littered with French patisseries (Cargo Club on Nguyen Thai Hoc being the crowning glory) and buildings seemingly nostalgic for their former glory. But by no means is Hoi An a monogomous town. It boasts a number of notable European and Asian fusion restaurants including the Ho Chi Mihn-based chain Good Morning Vietnam (Italian). The European association is enough to drive prices through the roof by Vietnamese standards, where a perfectly satisfying local meal can be purchased for less than $5 USD. Like many cities in Asia, Hoi An is a bit of an assault to the senses during the daylight hours, when its ragtag mix of influences makes it seem like a rundown orphanage, but night brings a flattering cloak of darkness:

Lanterns like stained-glass cathedral windows glow throughout the streets, and late-night tailors scramble to place the last orders of the day, measuring and pinning, chattering and cajoling.

Much of our stay in Hoi An passed in a blur of billowing fabric, measuring tape, and paper bills that flew out of our hands like they'd been magnetized. I ended the trip with 2 work shirts in blue and white linen, 2 cargo skirts in black and khaki, 1 brown pair of capris, a floor-length red-silk-lined opera coat, 1 grey basic winter coat, 2 formal dresses, and likely a few things that I've forgotten. The equivalent in the states would have easily cost me more than $500 USD. Hoi An is an easy place to indulge yourself:


because the possiblities are endless. It's only after several wears with your new clothing that you realize that perhaps the quality is not the best.

It's really no wonder - at one point I got a glimpse into the way the tailoring system works. I had ordered a silk dress from a shop that had the fabric I wanted but not the patterns, so I was shepparded onto a little motorbike, given a helmet, and driven by a tiny saleswoman to one of the "factories" in the residential areas where the seamstresses and designers worked. See, the storefront employees are usually bilingual salespeople who know the basic minimum about tailoring (enough to pin and measure) while the real work is done by a cadre of hard-working, Vietnamese-speaking seamstresses who sit bent over humming machines all day - and likely into the night. I worked briefly with a designer, showing her the pictures of the dress I wanted and watching as she sketched, then was hustled back onto the motorbike and into town again. Despite reassurances that the designer was "the best!" the dress came out all wrong and had to be sent back before I was willing to take it home with me. There are certainly some high-end tailors in Hoi An (who charge accordingly) but for the most part, the quality of clothing you'll get is bargain-basement. It may be cut to fit you, but as in most places -- you get what you pay for. I'd still recommend a trip to Hoi An, but only to very savvy shoppers who know how to identify good quality fabric and sewing.

Still, I can't say we didn't have fun:

(This picture just makes me want to say, "Fi Fie Fo Fum!" Three guesses as to why.)

We rang in New Year's Eve at our resort in what was undoubtably one of the weirdest celebrations I've ever attended. It was absolutely worth it for the sheer novelty (a game involving some sort of wooden paddle, a dancing contest wherein Gordon and I had to bust a move meanwhile managing not to drop a balloon pressed between our foreheads, the worst DJ ever, a lackluster buffet, the Vietnamese tradition of "lucky money" distributed among the guests by a venerable old man who seemed to be someone of considerable importance - perhaps the owner? - and sparklers):

but the party proper was held in the suite of rooms that Allyson, Bethany, and Gordon were sharing:

Word to the wise: Do NOT buy the $3 bottles of pink champagne. They are actually cough syrup or possibly cyanide masquerading as champagne. Again, you get what you pay for in Vietnam, excepting things that are strictly Vietnamese.

Welcome 2009!

The new year brought with it... lots of rain. The beaches of Hoi An went untraveled by the likes of our party, as we trudged through rain-drenched streets in rice hats and ponchos, watching the river gradually rise until it overflowed into the town streets:



Rain.


More rain.


And MORE rain.

In the end, at Jess's urging, we decided to make the most of it:

I've got good people.

Another notable exception to the glut of rain and tailoring was a day trip to My Son, the Cham Dynasty (the Indianized Kingdom of Champa ruled Vietnam for about 14 centuries in the early A.D. years) ruins outside of Hoi An on January 2nd. Jess, Gordon and I made a morning/afternoon of it on a chartered bus tour booked through our hotel. Although it rained lightly throughout the trip, the misty overcast weather leant a certain mystique to the already evocative place:


The ruins on approach

An overgrown corridor

Ancient glory

Anybody seen the Rosetta Stone? An inscribed stella.

A good day trip and a welcome injection of culture!

Our next step was Ho Chi Mihn City, aka Saigon.

DAY 4 and 5
Jess and I were up early for a breakfast of noodles and Vietnamese coffee at the hotel, after which we hopped on our bus to Halong since I absolutely forbade Jess to come to Vietnam without seeing Halong. Poor me, I had to go again. Oh, darn. Notable exceptions to my previous trip:
- We indulged in rice hats, for the shocking price of approximately $1. Mine served me well throughout the rainy rest of the trip given how much I detest umbrellas.
- We bought fruit off of one of the small motorboats that pursued our much larger junk and from which two young men leapt like monkeys and climbed up to the windows beside our tables:

- We befriended two traveling gentlemen whose paths would cross with ours on an outgoing train and again in Hoi An.

We arrived back in Hanoi, almost unrecognizable as the bustling chaotic city we’d come to know. The place was a ghost town. As we set out in search of dinner, we figured out why – a soccer game was on, and everyone was locked inside, glued to their televisions. As we were getting ready to climb into our cab to the train station, all hell broke loose – Vietnam had won the game. People ran through the streets shirtless, waving Vietnamese flags. Motorbike traffic clogged every thoroughfare, and at one point during what would normally be a 5 minute drive, we had to inch through a human pyroclastic flow of shouting, honking, exuberant fans. We rolled down the windows and marveled at the merriment. (Unfortunately my pictures of the festivities were lost.) We arrived at the train station just in time, paid our cab driver double the fare (despite the fact that he tried to swindle us out of considerably more; our first encounter with a less than honest Vietnamese person; for the most part the people had been tremendously accommodating, good-natured, and understanding), and tipped a young man who led us to our cabin.

Suffice to say our accommodation on the Reunification Express did not exactly meet my expectations for the romance of train travel. I suppose I’ve fantasized too long about the wood-paneled, velvet-upholstered Orient Express. Jess and I had the two lower bunks of a small, four-bunk sleeper car painted an institutional greenish blue shade. All romance vanished as we explored the bathroom at the far end of the car, which was dripping with sloshed water from the toilet bowl. One of the sinks was clogged, and had similarly drenched the area surrounding. Fortunately our cabin was mid-way down the car. We good-naturedly accepted all of this as par for the course, and even had enough grace to offer one of our bunks to the family who were sharing our cabin, as the father had only one arm and climbing up to the top bunk would have been a hardship for him. Jess and I settled in for the night after discovering that our traveling companions couldn’t speak a lick of English – unlike their son, who had come and gone once he’d seen his parents comfortably settled.

Commence the snoring. No problem. This is what iPods are for. Morning dawned. We sat up, stretched, found ourselves not too badly worse for the wear. Our traveling companions woke, too. The man sat up on his lower bunk, hocked, and spit a loogie… on the wall of our cabin. Jess and I exchanged horrified, disbelieving glances. Breakfast arrived, amid some confusion stemming from Jess and I lacking any language to ask questions or order. Our companions tucked into their packed breakfast, which involved some kind of foul-smelling sausage that they offered us and which we refused as unenthusiastically as we could manage. For the sake of his solicitous, kind, and much younger wife, we did our best to ignore Loogie Man, who like many Asian men seemed to operate under the impression that the more noise you make while eating, the more enjoyable the meal will be. After finishing his rice, he drew a few short breaths, paused, and then sneezed violently, shooting rice and who-knows-what-else across the window of the cabin as far as Jess’s pillow. After that there would be no more napping for either of us and we passed the time as far away from Loogie Man as possible. The trip, which was supposed to end around 11 AM, dragged on – first to noon, then 1 PM, then 2 PM. Stations were not clearly announced, so we teamed up with another group of traveling girls down the car to let each other know when Da Nang, our stop, arrived. We had never been quite so eager to leave any place as we were to get out off that train.

After a quick chat with our friends from the junk on Halong, who had spent a significantly less revolting trip in a hard sleeper car, we got into a taxi and headed for our resort – the Pho Hoi Riverside. After the train cabin, it was like paradise:



We met up with the crew, who had made it safely and also much less eventfully to Hoi An the day prior. After cleaning up, we went out to explore. Our first discovery was a plaza-of-sorts by the river that was occupied by a number of makeshift kitchens surrounded by benches and umbrellas/tarps. We dubbed it “the food tents” and religiously ate there at least once a day for the rest of our Hoi An stay – it was cheap, fast, and good. Our first venture out to find nightlife found us at Before & Now, one of the only late-night places. We drank some cocktails, played a rollicking game of “never have I ever” and came to the conclusion that Hoi An is not – at least not around Christmas time – a party town.



No idea what gave us that impression.

DAY 2 and 3
After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we loaded onto a bus and were on our way out of Hanoi, headed northeast to the coast and Halong Bay, a place vying for recognition as one of the modern wonders of the world. The drive was uneventful save for a few bathroom breaks at vast craft shops packed with pottery, needlework, clothing, paintings and lacquerware with prices clearly catering to the constant flow of tourist travel between Hanoi and Halong Bay. The countryside, alternating between rice fields and small towns, was as unassuming as any countryside the world over.

We arrived at the quay in Ha Long City, a surprisingly bustling place packed to the gills with tourists and junk boats in the harbor despite the grey, cloud-heavy weather.



We waited on the docks for a while, one of many inexplicable delays that seem to plague the Vietnamese tourism industry and which we came to accept as a matter of course. Amid clouds of exhaust from the junk boats’ idling engines, we made our way onto our home for the night: the Imperial Junk. As I was boarding the boat, my sunglasses came untucked from my pocket and plopped into the bay, disappearing in a matter of milliseconds as they sank into the cloudy grey-brown water. I was horrified, less by the loss of my souvenir ripoff sunglasses from the Beijing Silk Market, but that I’d contributed – however inadvertently – to further polluting Halong Bay with human detritus. We were shown to our room (very comfortable, but the standards we’d been expecting), then explored the boat. There were three levels – most of the overnight cabins occupied the lowest level, but our cabins were the only two tucked in behind the bar on the middle level. We climbed up to the top deck to get a better view:



On a summer day, the top deck would be a perfect place to stretch out and soak up the sun. Our hopes for sunshine to illuminate the bay seemed vain, but the place had a certain mystique in the misty overcast light.

Before long, we were motoring out of the port and onto the bay proper, weaving between the big junks and small motorboats piloted by enterprising locals peddling fresh fruit and snacks to the tourists. Lunch – which consisted in a never-ending train of seafood-derived steaming dishes on communal plates – was served on the middle deck, where we were all seated on wicker sofas with foam pillows upholstered in garishly flowered fabric. We got to know our fellow passengers, who were for the most part the middle-aged, sedate variety. In due course, we procured a few cans of local brew and carried them up to the top deck as we made our way toward Cat Ba Island through grey-cloaked hills wading through the bay like weary pilgrims:



Our first stop was a visit to one of the hidden caves in the limestone rock towers. Unfortunately my photo of the entrance vanished in my hard-drive meldown, so I can only guess that it was Hang Sung Sot, the “surprise” cave:


In addition to the colored lights that set off the rivers of stone, frozen in their flow, there were small red lights glowing in the uppermost part of one rock enormous conglomeration, giving its somewhat amorphous shape the hint of a dragon’s head (on the right of the photo). Although the scope of the cave – indeed surprising after a steep climb and a small, unpretentious entrance in the overgrown face of the stone – leant itself to reverential appreciation, the presence of penguin-shaped trash receptacles and the curiosities of “the fairy’s breast” rock formation and its accompanying male equivalent made the whole experience significantly more jocular. Unfortunately our “We’re in the Batcave!” pictures didn’t come out. We emerged from the cave onto a small platform overlooking the flotilla of junks gathered enmasse even on this overcast day. Departing, our junk collided with another, shattering a window with the kind of ponderous indifference of a giant rolling onto a house in restless sleep:



I could only imagine the chaos during the height of tourist season. Sails down, we puttered through small fishing villages almost Dickensian in their isolated desolation. At one we stopped and unloaded, walking carefully over a grid of planks floating on slowly degenerating Styrofoam blocks to avoid the netted pits that contained sealife of every permutation. We were invited to choose anything we’d like for lunch, purchase it from the villagers, and hand it over to the ship’s cook to prepare. Despite the novelty, I couldn’t do it. Instead, I watched the men from the village play an unidentifiable card game as two children chased each other across the structure, deftly avoiding the nets, putting on a bit of a show for the tourists. Theirs was a life I could barely imagine living.

As twilight crept in, we motored into a small cove littered with other overnight junks, their sails raised in the fading light.


After dinner the crew brought out the karaoke machine, and given that we were the only party-inclined guests on the boat, in short order we stole the show. Even Gordon, staunchly anti-karaoke, broke down and sang a few songs. One cannot miss the opportunity to say you’ve belted out an ABBA song on board a junk boat in Halong Bay, after all. Once we’d purchased the crew a round or two, they shared their homemade rice wine (fact: rice wine is disgusting the world over) and a few snacks procured from the kitchen by the cook, talking with us in heavily accented English until we surrendered and stumbled off to bed.

Portrait of an Overnight Junk Stay

The morning brought grey skies and the threat of rain. It commenced to drizzle as soon as breakfast was over, but our crew resolved to go kayaking anyway:



and despite sitting in gradually accumulating puddles, we had a blast. The kayaks slipped through the green water, just a thin shell of plastic separating us from unknown depths. We gazed up at the green-decked cliffs soaring above us from the surface of water peppered with tiny raindrops. It was an entirely different perspective on Halong, a much more intimate one which made it easy to forget the crowds of junks and see the place more as the people who first spun tales of the Jade Emperor and a celestial dragon descending had seen it – mystical, wondrous.

The rest of the trip played out like the first day in reverse: slow progress through the slouching hills, green water yielding to grey-brown, and unloading on curiously deserted docks which had been so packed the day prior. Most of the junks were on two-night trips. We had lunch at a local restaurant of vast scale, spending a good hour of inexplicable delay talking with a lovely couple from Kuala Lumpur, who invited us to visit them with unrelenting hospitality. Then it was back on the bus and back to Hanoi, where Jess would be waiting at the hotel.

Our reunion was joyful, but before long we fell – as good friends do – into the kind of comfort that forgets separation. Jess was welcomed with open arms by my crew; watching old friends meet new ones and mesh together without hesitation is without question one of my favorite experiences in this life. We sought out a restaurant with character in the Old Quarter, eventually choosing one with a good view of the bustle of the evening streets below:



We hurried Gordon, Bethany, and Allyson onto their taxi to the bus station for their overnight bus trip, then Jess and I set off into the city to find the Opera House (aka Municipal Theatre) and any part of Hanoi that resembled – to me, anyway – a city proper. In due course, we found both:



Away from the Old Quarter, Hanoi has an entirely different feel. Boutiques, upscale hotels, and modern amenities like crosswalks and stoplights do exist. I admit that part of me was gratified to have seen it, given the fact that I readily sacrificed a thorough tour of Hanoi (including the Citadel and Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum) for trips to Halong Bay. We followed the lights of the Sofitel Metropole Hotel to a small café that beckoned us in for a second dinner of Hanoi specialties with its quaint opulence:



We hopped a cab back to our hotel and turned in, ready for an early morning.

Day 1
The adventure began on Thursday, December 25th – an unorthodox Christmas to say the least.

When traveling, one must consider whether it’s worth the peace of mind to book a place to stay in advance and sight unseen… or arrive reservation-less and trust to luck. For our first night in Hanoi, we opted for peace of mind and booked online from Seoul a hostel with a good reputation for helpful front desk staff. That was precisely what we got, in addition to what veteran travelers accustomed to staying in places that aren’t five star resorts would call “character.” It’s a generous way of excusing a dump from utter dumpiness on account of the lack of egregious problems arising during the stay. And indeed, if we’d sought out a place to stay for qualities strictly definitive of Old Quarter Hanoi, we could not have chosen a better one than the Thuy Lam Hotel on Han Ga Street. From the moment of our arrival (where we were met by a driver from the hotel, a service we’d arranged in advance and the first of many that would redeem Thuy Lam from its unfortunate appearance), sitting in the taxi watching the row houses - some standing to five stories, their windowless concrete sides in rough contrast to front façades ornately embellished and balconied, like awkward schoolgirls with no adjoining buildings to justify their tall narrowness – whiz by in a blur, Vietnam made no secret of its shabbiness:


For certain it had its charms – the French colonial influence in architecture, the lush tropical plants, the quaint sight of women in rice hats toting long poles balanced by the reciprocal weight of baskets on either end – but there was no disguising the fact that it is not an economically advantaged country.

We arrived shell-shocked but excited from newness and travel, were led to our high-ceilinged, water-stained, curtain-darkened and slightly skunky-smelling rooms, and deposited our things. With the assistance of the unfailingly friendly English-speaking hostess, we arranged for an overnight trip to Halong Bay the following morning as well as an overnight bus to Hoi An for Gordon, Allyson, and Bethany and a train the night after for Jess and I. A matter of minutes and several Vietnamese coffees (complete with condensed milk) later, the first few days of our holiday were well arranged and we were free to venture out onto the streets of Hanoi.

Venture being a very appropriate word, imbued as it is with a certain uncertainty and danger, for the streets of Vietnam are a risky place to be for a foreign traveler unaccustomed to the hordes of motorbikes choking the veins of the city:



Were it not for the fact that the sheer volume of riders prevents anyone from going too quickly, daily life in Hanoi would consist almost entirely of a series of traffic accidents, one after another. There are few traffic lights to speak of, many roundabouts and only occasional crosswalks. At one point, standing amid a crowd of bikers moving at the pace of a leisurely walk, I wondered aloud why people bother to ride at all. It didn’t appear to be any faster than using one’s own two feet. But ride they did, and with enough skill to avoid even the most wayward tourist, as we quickly discovered. We relaxed enough to allow ourselves to look around.



The Old Quarter certainly lives up to its name in that it looks in many ways like a relic of some bygone era, albeit for the shops selling electronics, boots, giant stuffed animals, plastic toys of every possible permutation, and all of the other trappings of modern life tucked into the weathered facades of the buildings. It was the modernity that seemed incongruous, especially rising up from streets that seemed perpetually, stubbornly muddied despite the paving. I was fairly in awe of everything.

Fortunately Hanoi is fairly easy to navigate, and we made our way unerringly to the city’s centerpiece, Hoan Kiem Lake, which by all accounts doesn’t deserve a name grander than “pond” and is perhaps more accurately described by “sinkhole.” The murky water was ringed by mislaid trash in many places, and the trees looked so thoroughly discouraged by it that they trailed their leaves and branches into the water, whether in protection or correction it was unclear. The reverence of the Hanoians for this place as described in my guide book was not in particular evidence. The lake has two points of interest – the Tortoise Tower dedicated to the Vietnamese hero Le Loi and his legendary sword (a story akin in many ways to the Arthurian legend of Excaliber, save the Lady of the Lake is played by a giant turtle) at its south end and in the north, an island connected to the mainland by The Huc Bridge where Den Ngoc Son, the “temple of the Jade Mound,” houses both statuary and a lacquered specimen of the family of giant turtles still rumored to live in the lake. Although we didn’t have time to visit the temple, I unknowingly photographed a structure beside the bridge named Writing Brush Tower, which in retrospect was rather fitting to my literary predilection:


Inscribed in Chinese characters are the words, “A pen to write upon the blue sky.”

The primary purpose of our excursion to the lake was to seek out the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre and acquire tickets to this unique Vietnamese contribution to world theatre. For a ticket price of around $2 USD, we were treated to a near hour-long production accompanied by traditional Vietnamese music played by a highly disenchanted band on their second-to-last show of a multi-performance day. We were as amused by their near-comatose expressions as we were by the actual show. The idea of water puppetry is an interesting one: the brightly colored wooden puppets, manipulated from behind a screen by puppeteers standing waist-deep in the water “stage,” depicted traditional Vietnamese farming and worship themes, including the token fire-breathing dragons:



I can’t say it was the most riveting of all theatrical spectacles I’ve ever seen, but it was well worth it to see merely for its singularity and the opportunity to imagine how the puppeteers able to control such range of movement at the length of a long pole. I picked up a miniature replica of one of the puppets for my mom’s international doll collection.

Prior to the show, we’d sat down to our first authentic Vietnamese meal (fried noodles are de rigueur!) and happened upon a fellow English teacher from Seoul. The world, for all its vastness, is a very small place sometimes.

We returned to our hotel through the colorful streets:


The Vietnam trip had commenced.

On September 21 I took a trip out to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) between North and South Korea with a local tour company called Adventure Korea. (Adventure Korea, by the way, is a fantastic day-trip company specializing in local Korean flavor. They offer all manner of trips within Seoul and in its environs as well as the occasional longer-distance trip. It's reasonably priced, well organized, and a great way to meet other foreigners who are culturally in tune and/or curious.)

The DMZ, for a short history lesson, is a swath of land about 2.5 miles wide between North and South Korea through which runs the Military Demarkation Line designating the border between the two Koreas (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - which is anything but - AKA North Korea and the Republic of Korea, AKA South Korea):



Established after the signing of an armistic effectively ending the disastrous Korean War in 1953 (although no treaty was signed so the two Koreas are still technically at war), it remains in the eyes of many one of the last vestiges of the Cold War and has become one of the most - if not the most - heavily guarded border(s) in the world. Aside from two modest villages, the only human occupation in the DMZ is the Joint Security Area, in the now-defunt village of Panmunjeom which was largely destroyed during the Korean War and never repopulated on either side. The Military Demarkation Line runs through the Joint Security Area, even through the conference tables where representatives from North & South Korea occasionally meet face-to-face. It is the only place where the two Koreas actually "touch" across the DMZ; the majority of the land has stood undisturbed by human influence for over 50 years and as a result has become a de facto nature preserve. This natural isolation has as much to do with the hordes of U.S., North, and South Korean soldiers along the length of the DMZ as it does with the high concentration of land mines scattered throughout the area.

While many tour groups offer trips to the DMZ, I believe (though don't quote me on this) that the only one that is allowed into Panmunjeom and the Joint Security Area is the one run by the USO (United Service Organization). Korean citizens of either North or South descent, Russians, and Chinese citizens are not allowed into the Joint Security Area, but other nationals are. Tourists visiting this area must sign release forms indemnifying the tour group from any liability should they be killed due to enemy action from the other side, so needless to say it is still a tense place despite the general improvement of North/South relations in recent years.

Our trip with Adventure Korea consisted of 4 major stops:
1) Imjingak, a "peace village" on southern border of the DMZ (that's the DMZ, mind you, not the Military Demarkation Line, which has a 2,000 meter buffer on either side) controlled by South Korea
2) The 3rd tunnel (more on that later)
3) Dora Observatory
4) Dorasan Station

After a short ride from Seoul to Imjingak (it's a little disquieting how close Seoul is the DMZ and its accompanying threat from North Korea and simultaneously how tours of the DMZ are designed to make you feel even closer to North Korea when in fact you are quite far away in most cases), we had 40 minutes to explore the village. I must say that visiting Imjingak set the perfect tone for the rest of the trip, which amounts to, in a single word: weirdness.



The village consisted of a large parking lot complete with some carnival rides (??), a museum and some shops, some evocative "artwork" which succeeded in being rather eerie, a "Peace Bell", and an observation area overlooking the former "Freedom Bridge," a tumbledown ruin that is all which remains of a bridge spanning the Imjin River over which refugees and prisoners of war were returned during the Korean War. A new bridge connecting the north-south railway via Dorasan Station is going up alongside the historical bridge.

Having little to no introduction to the place since I'd shamefully neglected to do my homework about the trip, I set out to figure out the significance of all of this. My first stop was the wall blocking entrance to the new Freedom Bridge:
which was papered with notes, pictures, and other memorabilia probably of great significance to Koreans who have estranged family members across the border but which I was unfortunately unable to read and fully appreciate.

I meandered (and by meandered I mean booked it like there was a fire in my pants, determined to see everything) across the parking lot toward the opposite end of the site and found myself in:



A field of pinwheels? Yes, multi-colored pinwheels. This yeilded to an even greater curiosity: a series of WickerMan-esque figures emerging from the ground:



Are they cool? Well, yes. Are they creepy? Definitely. If what they are going for in Imjingak is a feeling of hopefulness for peace and reunification... I think they missed by a longshot.



Does that make you feel warm and fuzzy? Okay, me neither.

With several glances back over my shoulder to make sure these figures wouldn't spontaneously come to life and try to eat me, I walked around a semi-circular pathway crowned with flowing strips of white fabric:



This achieved much better the calming, benevolent feeling I think the designers were striving for, and yet at the same time seemed rather remarkably, enormously... pointless.

I hurried back to the bus, stopping quickly at the Peace Bell, which was rung in 2000 to signify a hope for improved relations between the two Koreas in the new century, feeling rather puzzled by the general oddness of what I'd seen so far.

This feeling was just the beginning. After a quick lunch stop for Korean traditional fare seated on the floor with our fellow travelers, my group headed for the Third Tunnel, one of four underground tunnels dug across the DMZ by the North Koreans as - allegedly - an means of invasion. (The North Koreans officially deny this.) These tunnels have been discovered at various times between the establishement of the DMZ and the present day, each time with great consternation on the part of the South Koreans and lots of shrugging, shifty eyes, and head-shaking on behalf of the North Koreans, who have (rather hilariously) claimed that the tunnels were dug for coal mining despite that the bedrock through which they were blasted is largely granite and the walls were later painted black to resemble coal. (At this point I wrinkle my brow and think, "Seriously? What kind of idiots do they take the South Koreans for, exactly?")

The third tunnel is located a mere 44 km from Seoul and theatrically called The Third Tunnel of Aggression (bearing no similarity whatsoever to the occasional southern American tendency to call the Civil War the "War of Northern Aggression"):



Although its full length is blocked off and heavily barricaded at the Military Demarcation Line, tourists are allowed to walk several hundred meters of its length in the direction of North Korea. After viewing a rather horrifying 'historical' video about the DMZ and the Korean War (which attempted to rouse emotions but succeeded neither in doing that nor in actually telling us any real information), we were allowed to don hardhats and go into the tunnel. Unfortunately pictures are not permitted in the tunnel, which is supposed to be 2 meters high but is in actuality low enough to necessitate that anyone over 5'6'' be bent over for the majority of the damp, dark walk, as my very tall friend Greg will no doubt eagerly complain to you. We were also able to obtain in our passports a very unofficial DMZ stamp, yet another instance of what I was beginning to suspect was a kind of propaganda akin to what the South Koreans so loudly despise in the North.

Next we loaded onto the buses again and went to Dora Observatory, located on a hill where the DMZ is narrowest. This allowed us to see, with the assistance of binoculars, over the Military Demarcation Line, over the northern part of the DMZ, and toward North Korea proper. We were only allowed to take pictures from behind a yellow painted line that was unfortunately rather far from the railing of the observation platform, but I managed to get a decent picture that included more than just tourists' heads:



Despite the haze, we could see Gijeong-dong, what the South Koreans call "Propaganda Village" on the North Korea side of the DMZ. Supposedly this village has no real population except for caretakers (people have said the the windows have no glass and the lights turn off and on at predictable times) and stands merely as evidence of North Korea's "prosperity." There appears to be a great deal of speculation about all things North Korea, with very little opportunity to verify much of anything, from rumors about Gijeong-dong to rumors about additional incursion tunnels and a Korean Wall similar to the Berlin Wall. Two things are for certain, however:

1. The world's tallest flag pole does in fact reside in Gijeong-dong, which stands at a height of 160 meters after being extended so it would remain taller than the flagpole erected in South Korea's only occupied village in the DMZ. Flagpole envy, anyone?

2. South Koreans delight in ascribing the most diabolical motivations to their Northern neighbors. Demonizing the North seems to be a fantastically interesting pastime, such that sometimes the degree of vilification borders on the absurd, funny in the totally uncomfortable way that grossly overstepped boundaries always are. That doesn't go to say that the North hasn't undertaken some pretty dastardly things, merely that the reaction to it seems frightfully like the kind of blanketing of truth that is so often ascribed to North Korea exclusively. (Echoes of America charging righteously into war meanwhile condemning any sort of religious crusade - dare I say jihad? - on the part of an enemy. Why is it we so readily become what we despise?)

My group of friends dealt with the emotionally charged undercurrents the best way we know how: humor. Fortunately my friend Greg was on hand to help us out. Outside the Dora Observatory building, we found this crest-of-sorts:



Yes, it says, "Nice." And Greg's arm, for those of you who can read Hangul, or Korean script, says, "Ni-e-suh." Yes, friends, that is a real tattoo which he will bear with him for the rest of his life. Ah, the things we do for humor.

Finally, we ended our day at Dorasan Station, the northernmost station on the South Korean side of the DMZ on the Gyeongui railway line which once connected North and South Korea. It is gradually being rebuilt, although passenger service between the two Koreas and reconnection to the greater Asian railway system is has yet to be achieved. A picture of one of the old engines left to disintegrate when the line was shut down and an accompanying South Korean soldier:



The station featured a newly built Peace Park:



Peaceful, no?

All in all the trip was interesting in addition to being alternately highly uncomfortable and creepy. To visitors to South Korea and students of the human condition to whom the closeness - both metaphorically and literally - of enemies demands acknowledgement and consideration, I'd say it's an experience not to be missed.

I have recently returned from a trip to a place that I never intended to go. That sounds bad, so allow me to clarify. Those among us who like to travel usually have certain travel objectives in mind: a mental check-list of places we'd like to visit. These places take precedence over others for any number of reasons: romantic fixations, academic or sometimes morbid curiosity, a rave review from a close friend, et cetera, since after all the world is a very, very big place and most of us cannot go everywhere (nor could we often say we really want to). I, too, have a "to do" list of travel destinations, and I can say in all honesty that Malaysia never really made it onto that list. And yet the nature my current lifestyle allows me fairly ready access to all of Asia, making it signficantly easier now than at any point in my life to go somewhere on a whim.

Which is exactly what I did. My friend and fellow teacher Rachel announced her intention to go to Malaysia and shortly after I announced my intention to crash her party. Fortunately she was receptive to the idea, and in short order I found myself in possession of an economy class airline ticket to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.

Upon hearing that, if your geographic knowledge is anything like mine, you might be asking ( where in the world ) is that?

It is, as I discovered with the assistance of Google Earth (possibly the greatest invention ever), on the island of Borneo (which is shared by Indonesia), in the state called Sabah. Peninsular Malaysia, on which the capital Kuala Lumpur is located, is far better known; in fact, I think few people (myself included, prior to this trip) realize that Malaysia is divided into two parts separated by the South China Sea. Sabah and Sarawak are the two Malaysian states on the northern part of Borneo, which is nevertheless rather... massive and impossible to explore in its entirety in the four short days I was there visiting.

Of course this lack of comprehensive exploration probably had something to do with the fact that I have never undertaken an international trip with less preparation than I did on this trip. Part of this was deliberate, as I fully intended to experiment with most people's idea of a vacation, which consists of sitting on the beach drinking cocktails and doing the better part of nothing for as long as possible. This sort of vacation is utterly foreign to me (being my mother's daughter, my vacations usually proceed like this: go,go,go,do,do,do,see,see,see,learn,learn,learn - lather, rinse, repeat - and are probably closer to most people's definition of a job), so I figured I'd give it a whirl. My conclusions on that experiment coming later.

I went on to discover that this particular place has a panoply of names - alternately referred to as Malaysia, Borneo, KK, Kota Kinabalu, or Sabah. I suppose this is no more complex than say, "Texas AKA The South AKA Austin AKA A-Town AKA One Of The Few Livable Places For A Thinking Person In A Region Otherwise Plagued With Endemic Backwardness AKA America AKA The USA AKA The United States" and so on and so forth... but I suppose as a foreigner arriving in Malaysia these myriad names were a little overwhelming. I had restricted my research pre-vacation to Kota Kinabalu proper and my resort, the Nexus Resort Karambunai, so it was something of a surprise to arrive and discover all of the amazing options the rest of Sabah offered.

But before I digress too much on the things I didn't do and will have to go back eventually and accomplish, I will tell you a bit about what I did manage to do.

Principally: indulge. That is what a resort vacation is all about, anyway, and I willingly complied. Our resort was beautiful and elegant from the moment I arrived in my private car at midnight in the midst of a spectacular rainstorm. The lobby greeted me in all its rustic splendor:

and the next morning I woke up to this view out of my window:

Hooray for the tropics. This being my first-ever tropical vacation (I've been many places, none of which qualify as properly tropical), I can only plead ignorance about the power of the sun in said regions. (Alternative being blaming global warming and/or holes in the ozone layer; frankly I'd rather the reality be that I'm just dumb.) On my first day, I managed to cook myself to a degree I can only qualify as "extra crispy" within an hour and a half in the overcast morning. A NOTE TO ALL TRAVELERS TO THE TROPICS: Wear Sunscreen. Yes, even when it's overcast. Yes, even before noon and after 5 PM. Yes, you might as well wear it at night just to be safe.

I also managed to accomplish the completion of a resort tour on my first full day, from the resort proper complete with three pools:

private beach frontage with white sand as advertised (as it was jellyfish season, I didn't take full advantage of this feature), seven restaurants (Noble House - Chinese, Olives - Mediterranean, Darlin'Darlin'- Bar food, The Kingfisher - Malaysian, Splashes - Poolside grill & bar, The Horizon - Bar food & snacks, The Sunset Bar - Fusion, and The Penyu - Buffet style), golf (which I didn't take advantage of because I can't golf except in miniature), a full-service spa, a gym, several small shops, conference facilities, and a satellite office for Wildlife Expeditions, a tour company running all manner of trips throughout Malaysian Borneo. It was pretty much its own universe.

We caught a shuttle bus into Kota Kinabalu proper (as Nexus is out in the wilds north of KK) to explore the town itself. KK is clearly a metropolis in the developing world: it has its share of upscale boutiques, restaurants, resorts, and even a Starbucks (it boasts one of the only Irish pubs I've yet seen in Asia), but if you stroll into the depths of its streets, you find a far more primitive kind of city. In many respects it reminded me of China (from appearance to smells!), partly because there is a signficant Chinese influence in Malaysia. It is in many ways a melting pot of many Asian cultures. Of all the unusual sights to behold in KK, I was most amused by this one:

as it proudly proclaimed in bold English letters, the "Amateur Fatalist Centre." Interesting. I chose this wide shot to give you a little perspective on the streets of KK: lots of open-air tourist shops, food markets, and textile shops contrasting with buildings climbing steadily higher like a visual progression from developing to developed.

One's afternoon glimpse of KK was all that we required, as the remainder of our days were spent luxuriating on the resort, enjoying the sunsets:

(At the resort's aptly named Sunset Bar)
the ambiance:

(The pools at twilight)
and the elegance:

(A side staircase leading up from the pools to the lobby)
I have no pictures of the absolutely fabulous spa because no pictures are allowed, but you can visit the resort's website if you are that interested. I can recommend the sunburn treatments!

On our final day we took a day trip out to two islands off the coast of KK - Mamutik and Manukan - with Wildlife Expeditions. The latter island was apparently the location for the first Survivor season, something of only cursory interest to me since I believe I can count the number of minutes of Survivor I've watched on one hand. I prefer the reality TV show of my life, thank you very much.

After departing on a ferry from the pier:

(KK was originally called Jesselton after Sir Charles Jessel, who was Vice Chairman of the British North Borneo Company in the early 1900s when the city was established as a trade hub and railway terminus by British colonists. It had a colorful history and was effectively razed to the ground twice and renamed three times before Malaysia established itself as an independent country in the 1960s and officially recognized it as a city in 2000.)
we were treated to a fascinating parade of what I called "junk ships" but which were more likely fishing vessels in various states of disrepair. They seemed mighty piratical to me and clustered together in the harbor like shy, tattered butterflies:

Our arrival on Mamutik, the smaller of the two islands, was quintessentially tropical:

... a weathered wooden jetty ...

... tropical fish galore swimming through crystal-clear blue green waters...

... stretches of immaculate white beach ...

... and driftwood nestled into the sand ...

We spent a several hours here, snorkeling (only mildly terrifying for someone who is paranoid about sea life such as myself), eating a picnic lunch, and - as it turned out - parasailing on a yet another whim. I have never been parasailing before, and I must say that it was a heck of a place to try it out:

(My feet floating above the ocean floor)

(Mamutik and Manukan out in the ocean)

When we transferred over to Manukan (which is bigger and considerably more touristy - and consequently busier and dirtier - complete with restaurants and overnight lodging options, the most appealing of which appeared to be Sutera Sanctuary Lodges) despite the fact that as I stumbled off the white sandy beach after falling asleep in the breezy shade under a tree for about forty-five minutes and managed to catch my toe on a step in the gift shop. I can speak kindly of the first aid kits and assistance of the Sutera employees, at least.

The trip to the islands was a great way to finish off the trip; we packed up our things and headed out to the airport (which is somewhat primitive by international airport standards, though it's being gradually improved) for our overnight flight back to Seoul.

It was in all respects a perfectly satisfying vacation, but I am left with a very uncharacteristic feeling of wanting to do MORE which usually never assails me after a trip, because I generally do as much as is humanly possible. I've browsed through the brochure we picked up from Wildlife Expeditions and discovered that there's so much to do in Malaysian Borneo that we didn't do, including the following top ten:

1) Visiting the Sepilok Orangutan Center in Sandakan.
2) Cruising through the mangrove forest.
3) Staying overnight in a traditional Long House.
4) Exploring Kinabalu National Park and Poring Hot Springs (Climbing Mt. Kinabalu is not a day trek; usually it's an overnight trip requiring considerable fortitude).
5) Seeing the famous Rafflesia (the biggest flower in the world, yes, the very one that smells like rotting bodies), although we did learn that it is not the season for the flowers to bloom, so if we'd undertaken this trip we wouldn't have seen any anyway.
6) Experiencing a Water Village (Kampong Ayer is called by some the "Venice of the East" and consists of a houses sheltering 30,000 people and built on stilts on the banks of the Brunei River).
7) Visiting a Monospiad village. This group of warriors of the Kadazan Dusan tribe was the most feared. I learned that tribes in ancient Borneo used to practice headhunting, and I suspect that this one did, too.
8) Visiting Selingan Turtle Island, where sea turtles nest. My friend Cheryl from my Nixon Peabody days actually mentioned this place to me prior to my trip and I did a little investigating. As it turns out the turtles don't lay eggs at the time I was in Malaysia, and the island is a domestic flight away from where I was in Kota Kinabalu... but it certainly merits a return visit, if possible.
9) Rainforest treks on suspension walkways in the canopies of some of the oldest rainforests in the world. We were detered from rainforest treks by the likelihood of encountering leeches, a very real threat as we discovered talking to a family visiting from England at the resort whose daughter got accidentally leeched on just such a trek. Leech socks, anyone??
10) Diving at Sipadan Island, a famous dive site renouned for its submurged extint volcano, "turtle tomb" (cave full of preserved sea turtle skeletons), and incredibly rich marine life. (Sounds great, but I suspect that had I undertaken this trip I might have had a heart attack, as marine life in all forms freaks me out utterly, though I'd recommend it to diving enthusiasts.)

You can visit the Sabah Tourism Board site to get some more detailed information on things to do in Malaysian Borneo if you're planning a trip or are just curious.

In the end, I was grateful to have discovered in the exotic locale of Malaysian Borneo that I am one of those strange creatures that prefers the threat of leeches to the promise of fruity cocktails by the poolside.

Lesson learned... and onto planning the next adventure!

I was writing a letter (yes, as in a real letter, on real paper, to be sent through the real mail, aka "snail mail" - I sometimes cling to these outdated niceties) to a friend today and found myself meandering into the topic of beauty.

Being a quintessential (if you can forgive the astrological citation) Libra whose outlook and mood have always been profoundly influenced by my surroundings, I am a particular admirer of beauty. I notice it, delight in it, and try to replicate it in every imaginable permutation. I have always tried to make my living and working space as aesthetically pleasing and reflective of my convictions as my budget will allow, with limited success. I have reflected before that my need to make "the outer chime with the inner" (as I believe C.S. Lewis said, possibly in reverse) is probably based largely on an overwhelming desire to try to share the beautiful world that exists in my head by attempting to translate a metaphysical state of being into a tangible place that people can physically walk into. Sometimes this compulsion spills over into my physical self; on days when I am feeling especially contented, I also devote the most time to looking that way, too. I think it is a not-uncommon phenomenon, especially among women.

As I've grown older and experienced more of the world, my definition of beauty has expanded considerably, and though I've managed to cultivate an appreciation for all kinds of beauty - in things, people, circumstances, alignments, misalignments, accidents, et cetera - there is a certain kind that always stirs my soul to an extent unapproached by any other. I don't know if I can properly define it, but it's a kind of convergence of antiquity, agelessness, elegance, simplicity, quality and singularity. Though it doesn't follow a formula or conform to any particulars, I find this kind of beauty most frequently in old European cities.
So there I sat writing my letter, my thoughts spilling inward like water gushing into a drain: thoughts about my general happiness living in Seoul, its vast differences from other cities I've seen and lived in, and vividly clear memories of being in and experiencing their manifold beauties. I decided it would be good to share some images of Seoul since I have been more than a little lax in painting a proper picture of the place on this blog.

Like in many Asian cities, the streets of Seoul are a sensory overload:

Itaewon

There are panoplies of makeshift street markets composed of temporary food tents and day vendors, extended storefronts, and - in the summer - outdoor tables. Most of the buildings are papered several stories high with garish advertisements and marquees in a rainbow of less than complementary colors. The streets of Seoul in all but the most upscale neighborhoods are absolutely bursting with so many sights, smells, and sounds that you hardly know where to look and your overwhelmed eyes miss the dark corners, the aging facades of buildings, the accumulated filth of busy city life. Night hides even more sins, transforming streets that assert their uniqueness in the light of day into homogenous tunnels of neon light:


Making one's way through Seoul's labyrinthine streets at night is a challenge even for the most intuitive navigator.

There are a great many things about Seoul that are at the very least unsightly and at the worst offensive to a student of beauty:

And yet like many extreme opposites (beauty/ugliness, brilliance/insanity, courage/fear) there is a certain parallel - a kind of beauty that has to be admired in brazen ugliness or the utter disregard for the importance of cultivating beauty, a kind of accidental beauty that too has its place:

Underside of several of Seoul's many bridges along the Han River

Rooftops

Then there is a more deliberate beauty, created purposefully if not necessary in alignment with everyone's ideal:

Cheonggyecheon Stream, near Insadong
... in a tidily maintained green space, an oasis in the steel and concrete jungle...


The 63 Building
... the clean lines of a skyscraper soaring above the skyline...


Namsan Tower
... the encroachment of nature - blue sky and green forested hills - on the cityscape...

And there is still another kind of beauty, the kind that in Asia seems at too much of a premium for public consumption but which is found in abundance in the palaces and private spaces of the manifoldly privileged, the kind that is meticulously crafted for the enrichment of the soul:

and which is consequently not particularly practical for city planning.

These kinds of beauties are entirely mutually exclusive in Seoul; sometimes they can adjoin one another, but they never occur simultaneously.

Fortunately my taste for beauty is not too discriminating, so the part of me that loves and requires beauty is sufficiently sated to prevent me from running utterly mad from lack of stimulation, but I do find myself sometimes longing to be surrounded and enveloped by the kind of soul-stirring, pervasive beauty that I see in man-made things like Notre Dame cathedral, Piazza San Marco, the Smithsonian castle, the Loire valley estates, sidewalk cafes in Athens... or in natural things like the waterfalls of Letchworth, sunsets over the Badlands, or the crystalline waters of the Bay of Corinth.

But then I remember moments like the one I experienced in a taxicab on the way back to Mokdong from Itaewon one perfectly clear Sunday evening as sunset gilded the sprawling vastness of Seoul and turned the Han riverbed into a sparkling ribbon, and I am simply grateful to be where I am and be able to appreciate it in all its unequivocal ... beauty.

**Photo credits in this entry due to Jonathon Thompson, transplanted Canadian and shutterbug who has been much more thorough than I in photographing daily life.***

Among all mundane things that a person can collect in the course of a lifetime, shoes most readily volunteer their story: worn soles that have trod countless miles, straps pulled thin with tireless endurance, scuffs and scratches proudly displayed like battle scars.

My pair is reaching the end of their lifetime; they are cracked and weathered and falling to pieces. Yet to throw them away is almost unthinkable, these shoes that likely bear granules of attic Greek sand, have yeiled imperceptible portions of their depth to the siege of Chinese back alleys, and announced my arrival with sharp claps on the wood floors of a South Korean hogwan.

They are the chronicle of my first year on the grassy road, condensed, and are among the few things that have accompanied me for the entire duration. Like Dorian Grey's picture, they have been altered by my adventures and the passage of time far more visably than the clear-eyed face that greets me in the mirror each morning, the legs grown strong with wandering that I curl beneath me. In their battered quietude, they shout a reminder of what has been seen and done, and what still begs seeing and doing.

Spring arrives in a twirling frenzy of liberated cherry blossom petals, and days are carried on the lull and crest of indistinct childish voices in hallways.
Hot hazy days yeild to crisp twilights that whisper and sigh in hoarse city voices.
Footfalls and falling shadows lengthen like longing into the headlong tumble of passing time.
Moments aren't made for holding onto.
Bus brakes are an unexpected lullaby in a cradle of neon light:- dreams of taxi cabs and tourniquets.
Speech falls on deaf ears but touch and taste shout flinching loud
And sight has long since gone blind.
Life is an eloquent fumble that stirs the dust and fallen leaves in its blundering wake.

















Life is beautiful.

Anyone who knows me remotely well knows that I have a mild (read: rampant, bordering on lunatic) obsession with Irish music. Always have, always will. Needless to say, living in a succession of Asian countries has meant that I have not been able to get my fiddle fix for nigh on 10 months, a situation that (after having lived and breathed live Scythian shows for about two years in DC) is detrimental in the extreme to my general peace of mind. So when FF in Hongdae sent me an email advertising Irish Night a full month in advance of St. Patrick's Day, I was there. With bells on. (Okay not literally, though I wouldn't put it past myself.)

The band (which I am ashamed to say I don't know the name of) was a fabulous ensemble, complete with tin whistle, accordion, and bodhran. They played music in a more traditional vein, in manner of the Chieftans and bands of yore at a session, which sadly meant no Guinness-swilling choruses of "Finnegan's Wake" -- but given my degree of withdrawl from Irish music, I wasn't complaining. At this point, get me anywhere near a fiddle and I am almost incapacitated with paroxyms of delight.

But more than the fiddle or the bottled (hey, don't hate - it's bettern' nothing) Guinness, what warmed my heart the most of all during this show was the culture-bridging, inhibition-annihilating, seeming-mandate inherent in Irish music for all people in earshot who have an ounce of merrymaking potential in their blood to hop up and down like they've been trained to stepdance since they were old enough to eat potatoes. Irish music brings on congo lines and leg kicking as naturally as breathing, and my god - it's beautiful:



In conclusion, as a general call to all Irish bands... you have a vast, unexplored frontier of fanbase here in Asia. South Koreans, at least, know a good time when they see it.

Sláinte!

I found the occasion of needing to buy a new bottle of contact solution fairly poignent; it was another reminder of the reality that I'm living very decidedly abroad. I mean, when you vacation you usually don't have cause to buy such mundane things as contact solution. So I took a little photo to commemorate the occasion:

Two bottles of contact solution, one from Santorini, Greece and the newest version from the Log In 24 hour convenience store in Seoul, South Korea. I threw in a tube of Chinese toothpaste for good measure. I got that one from - you'll never guess - McDonalds. That's right. Instead of toys in China you get toothpaste with your Happy Meal. (Though I suppose judging from the recent track record of Chinese-made toys, this is probably a good thing.)

In other news, I have to get more pages in my passport. That's right - I am almost entirely out of clean pages LONG before my passport expires in 2012. I consider this something of an achievement.

I found that many of my pictures in China lent themselves very well to the albumen (a developing method used in the late 1800s that used albumen from egg whites to bind the image to the paper) filter on my photo editing software. I'll share some of those photos along with my musings on my time in China (July - November, 2007).


Suzhou tenement alley

Click the link below to see the rest of the entry:
( Behind the Wall )

( Where in the world? )

I bid farewell to some very dear friends in Rizhao and made my way by overnight bus (by far the most comfortable journey by such means thus far - either I'm getting used to it or I had a particularly good bus...) to Beijing. I had arranged to spend five days there while I took care of my visa paperwork for Korea, and naturally my first (and to be truthful only ambition) was to see the Great Wall.

And see it I did:

(I love thresholds.)

The day was absolutely stunning - clear and only slightly cold despite a dusting of snow. I opted for a walking tour of one of the lesser-visited sections of the Wall:


so it was half restored and half in glorious shambles:



The Great Wall is definitely one of those things that really has to be seen to be believed. It's all nice and good to read about the generations of work, the harsh conditions, the lives lost, the sheer scale of the project -- but to see it is another matter entirely. To walk it is an experience apart (not only because it's positively lung-busting):



If you follow its winding length, it archs up over the crest of the peak to the left, undulating onward as far as the eye can see. And there's an equal measure of wall behind this vantage point. It's almost like watching time, manifest.

On my trek I was (as most tourists are) doggedly followed by an entourage of souvenir-saleswomen, these bandy-legged, tireless, wiry, ageless people who have grown up in the shadow of the Great Wall making their living off its fame. The woman who followed me (and patiently waited, breathing shallowly, as I panted my way up the near-vertical paths between towers) had never attended college or high school, but instead learned all her English and her way back home in the dark by walking the Great Wall every day with her bag of postcards, books and panoramic photographs:


Remarkable.

At the end of our hike we came to the Simatai Reservoir:



And I wrapped up my Great Wall trek by navigating a bridge:


To a zipline that rocketed me over the reservoir whooping and hollering like a cowboy. Can I get a yee-haw?

Ben, in his typical charmingly cavalier way, remarked in the same breath on the beauty of the Great Wall and its ultimate pointlessness at great cost. Given its basic ineffectiveness as a defense, I think it is, more than anything, a symbol:


Interpret away.

Aside from the Great Wall, I made a trip to the Lama Temple, the largest of its kind in Beijing:

on a sunny day where a slight chill and the cloying smell of temple incense shared the air.

Happened upon another sight mentioned in Behind the Wall -- the imposing Buddha statue in the final temple whose golden head soars to dizzy heights within a very confined space, seeming all the larger thereby:

but the most memorable part of the trip was a random encounter with a Russian tourist who grilled me with questions in halting English only to declare himself well pleased, pull a lovely little nesting doll out of his coat pocket, and bestow it on me as a gift.

Ah, the beguiling idiosyncracies of travel...

I wrote this tidbit as a "real" travel article with slightly more focus than my typical posting. The theme is "the intrinsic educational aspects of meaningful travel." I found that writing with a particular theme revealed some impressions that I perhaps would not have articulated otherwise, though my narrative is not remotely chronological (it conflates several trips) and does not adhere strictly to the truth (in one aspect only, which will be a reassurance to my mother, because I was not in fact alone on a rural highway in China at 3 AM. Ali was with me. Haha - perhaps not as great a reassurance as she would have liked...). And it is definitely Ali's Mandarin bargaining skills that were our saving grace. Or at least her ability to berate taxi drivers.

Anyway, here's ( Worth the Cost. )

( Where in the world? )
Lacey and her co-worker Stella came over to China from South Korea for their fall holiday at the end of September, so meeting them for a little reunion tour was a foregone conclusion.

I arranged to take a sleeper bus (my second experience with this quintessentially Chinese - i.e. cleverly utilitarian although slightly less than comfortable - method of travel; the first go was on the way back from Hangzhou with Ali where we ended up sharing our bottom-level bunk with various appendages of other passengers who were unfortunate enough to board after the bus was technically full so consequently had to spend the 8 hour trip sleeping back-to-back awkwardly in the aisles) from Rizhao to Beijing on Sunday night. This time I requested a top bunk, although it turned out that the bus wasn't oversold. It was, however, about 3 hours late. This is a rarity for Chinese transportation, which you could usually set your watch by. However, it did put me into Beijing at about 10 AM, two hours after Lacey and Stella's tour bus left for the Great Wall. Drat!

Nevertheless, I was determined not to waste any time in Beijing, so I caught a cab out to ( The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. )

On Day Two, after a truly impressive Western breakfast spread at the hotel, we set off for ( The Summer Palace. )

We made our way to the Temple of Heaven, surely one of the most beautiful temples in China:

something I again observed with the kind of reverential detachment which many of the imperial structures inspire me to almost exclusively. Perhaps they are too... institutional for my tastes.

I much prefered the ragtag procession we made through Beijing's hutongs, narrow traditional streets lined with shops and houses that the government has preserved as a matter of historical interest. We loaded into rickshaws driven by a crowd of high-spirited and deeply tanned drivers who obligingly pedaled us through the hutongs under the shadow of a bell tower that used to announce the hour back before there were wristwatches:

We got a short history lesson about hutong life, especially as regards the thresholds of the family houses which (as I begin to understand is true of a great many Chinese structures) are embued with meaning. The number of crossbeams protroding above the door denote the number of families sharing the yard within, the stone figurines on either side of the door indicate the families' status in society, and the doorways are designed to keep ghosts (some of which cannot step over anything and others which cannot turn right or left but only go straight) out.

We were fortunate enough to visit a hutong family house, where the obliging owner served our large group tea and proudly showed us her yard:

which (as many things in China perhaps equally undeserving of the word) is by all accounts, "very beautiful." It is remarkable, actually, how readily the word "beautiful" is tossed around in China; so much so that I often wonder if it means the same thing at all. I get the feeling it only means, "different from the norm." The yard had a certain charm: a little bird sang in a cage, a small garden flourished proudly green, and the late afternoon sun worked its particular magic on the harsher elements (such as the stack of disused mattresses, springs and other components from various unidentifiable electronics saved with typical Chinese frugality that disdains labeling much of anything as outright garbage), but it certainly wasn't ... beautiful. Perhaps my eyes are merely less generous than Chinese eyes. ("I was juggling with my own values, not with theirs. I knew nothing." - Behind the Wall, Thubron.)

I rounded out my visit to Beijing with a trip to the famous silk market, where Lacey, Stella and I tried our hands at bargaining with some success. As for the city itself, it is very decidedly modern and sprawlingly huge; since I didn't have the opportunity to attempt the subway system I measured everything by cab fare, and considering that the average was 50 quai and 30 minutes one-way, suffice to say my imagination had underestimated it, too.

It will be, no doubt, a fantastic venue for the Olympic festivities... at least if the Chinese enthusiasm for the forthcoming games (akin to that of a young child on Christmas Eve) is any indication.

( Where in the world? )
Before she returned to England, Ali and I took a trip out of Shandong to Suzhou and Hangzhou.

Settled on a bus and infinitely proud of ourselves for having acquired tickets to the correct place at a reasonable price, we began what turned out to be a trip full of gut-busting laughter, which is pretty much the hallmark of every experience involving Ali.

We arrived in Suzhou at night - the perfect time to see why it's been called the "Venice of China":

Once we were situated in our hostel (very nice, by the way - all of my hostel experiences in China were good, thanks in large part to Hosteling International; the Suzhou location is Suzhou Minghantang.), we ventured out onto the canals:

and even caught a traditional Chinese music performance:

In the light of morning we discovered that Suzhou is not famous merely for its canals, but also for its beautiful gardens. We didn't have time to see them all, but made our way (Suzhou is surprising easy to navigate, even without a proper map) to the largest of them ( The Humble Administrator's Garden. )

On our way back from the garden, we climbed to the top of the North Temple Pagoda:


Possibly my favorite place, however, was the Changmen scenic area, and not for the reasons you'd expect. There happened to be a block of extraordinarily old, bedraggled and vaguely Dickensian houses sitting right alongside one of the canals that instantly captured my fancy. The proved to be absolute perfect photography fodder, a remarkable encapsulation of the contradictions that ARE China:


After only one day in Suzhou, Ali and I caught a bus to Hangzhou, a relatively large, modern metropolis very close to Shanghai (which, unfortunately, we didn't visit). Aside from its decidedly Western party scene, Hangzhou is famous for its beautiful West Lake, which didn't disappoint:

either for tranquility or pomp:


But by far the most entertaining part of our several-hour-circumnavigation of the lake was Ali's antics, which varied from mistaking figures approximating ancient people in an exhibit on historical artifacts for the advertised 7,000 year old items (and accompanying bafflement as to why the other browsers were not equally impressed by these 7,000 year old, well-preserved remains of people... and then accompanying mortification and hilarity upon realizing her mistake) to loudly and demonstrably relating a story of party antics in England, much to the awe and fascination of the crowds of Chinese onlookers who watched her pinwheel her arms and mime vomiting while I stood by red-faced and inarticulate with laughter.

Our trip ended with a sit-down at an IRISH PUB (The Shamrock - words cannot express my delight at having found a real pub in China) with Natalie before hopping an overnight bus (which proved to have been completely oversold, a situation which necessitated us sharing our narrow beds with the appendages of other passengers who spent the majority of the trip sprawled in the aisles between bunks) which deposited us rather unceremoniously on the side of the road in rural China at 3 AM.

Ah, travel.