Capital City

(View of downtown Seoul from Namsan tower on a day of particularly bad hwangsa)

After too many consecutive weekends spent in Ulsan, I finally made a long overdue return journey to Seoul this weekend to see my Chicago-era friend, Ja-young. For those that know her, Ja-young is in excellent spirits and currently working towards getting a position at the United Nations in Korea. Thankfully, she wasn't opposed to me tearing her away from her preparation for a couple of days, and thus I was able to renew my love affair with Korea's capital city. Before I go any further, I should note that Ulsan does have its charm, as hard as that may be to believe, and that my affection for Seoul probably has a lot to do with the fact that I don't actually live there. But I can assure anyone in Seoul who may be reading this that there is a lot more to do in your city than there is in mine, so it's a nice place for a Ulsaner to visit.

I took the "red-eye" bus out of Ulsan, leaving Samsandong at 1:00 in the morning on Saturday and getting into the express bus terminal in Gangnam four hours later, having slept all the way there. I headed up to Apgujeongdong for a breakfast of blueberry pancakes at Butterfinger's, which seemed ludicrously expensive but worth it considering I haven't had pancakes since I left the States. From there, I made my way up to the palace district near Insadong to check out what was on display in the many art galleries there. First, I basked in the beautiful simplicity of Ryoo Byung-yup's pastoral paintings at the Hyundai Gallery, which were truly some of the most magnificent pieces I've ever seen in person, let alone my favorite modern Korean paintings.

Something in his style, which apparently has remained virtually unchanged since the early 1990s, reminded me of the Fauvist and Cubist movements, but done in an entirely Korean way. Then it was on to the Kumho Gallery for an entirely forgettable exhibition, and then to the ArtSonje Center, which is currently displaying the BMW Art Cars. I was unaware that these existed; basically, some of the most famous and important pop artists of the 20th century, including Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein and Ken Done, whose cars are on display, were commissioned to paint BMW race cars that were raced at the LeMans 24 hour race in France. In addition to the full-size cars, there were also some scaled down models designed by, among others, the likes of Robert Rauschenberg and Alexander Calder.

After a morning of art, I met Ja-young for lunch, an arrangement of different jjigae. From Insadong, we took the subway over to Myeongdong and rode the cable car up to Namsan Tower. Although the hwangsa obscured most of what would otherwise be an almost perfect view of Seoul, the remaining beotkkot were visible, which provided me with some nice juxtaposition in this picture:

We descended from Namsan and spent some time at the han-ok village in Myeongdong, an example of traditional Joseon-era architecture. Although it was a bit too touristy for my tastes, it allowed me to see for myself the features of the han-ok that I had recently read in my collection of Korean anthropology articles.

Dinner time found us in Hongdae eating sushi and drinking soju before reclining in Gr8, which we discovered when I visited over New Year's, with a hookah and some cocktails. To my great fortune, this past weekend just happened to be the third anniversary of "Sound Day," a monthly (?) event in Hongdae where the jazz, rock, and hip-hop clubs band together to showcase the local musical talent under one, affordable 15,000 won cover charge. We started out at Club Evans listening to a jazz trio under the direction of Lee Yeong-gyeong, considered by some to be the premier jazz pianist in Korea (coincidentally, I had actually seen his trio perform before in Itaewon). In addition to Lee there was an electric bassist and a drummer, both much younger. The drummer's solos in particular seemed strange to me; I wished that my musically-inclined brother had been there to tell me whether what he was doing was genius by playing outside the beat or just really awful. The highlight came on the last song of the set, an energetic and entrancing retooling of an old Django Reinhardt song (sans guitar, of course) where Lee really showed off his chops. Afterwards, we popped next door to FF to catch the end of the rockabilly-punk group "The Moonshiners," a supergroup of sorts assembling some of the biggest names from Seoul's underground punk scene. Their brand of punk was more up-tempo than some, which I enjoyed because it meant the crowd was really having fun. The lead singer/guitarist, Cha Seung-woo, formerly of "No Brain," was definitely the coolest Korean guy I've ever seen. He was dressed like a cross between Buddy Holly and Colonel Sanders, but he had the stage antics of Pete Townshend. I was glad to have caught the end of the set as FF is a relatively small venue and was quite literally a "sweatbox." To cap off the evening, we made our way to Hole for a hip-hop set by a local DJ. The set was an interesting mix of the biggest hits of the summer of 2004 ("Lean Back," "Where The Hood At," etc.) and a surprising amount of trap and crunk music. He also played two tracks off of Nas's latest album ("Carry On Tradition" and "Hip-Hop Is Dead"), so I guess the Koreans appreciated the album even if no one else did (I was one of the minority that thought it was good, I gather). I danced myself to the brink of pain, at which point it was time to go back to the hostel.

On Sunday, Ja-young and I lazed about in Gangnam, visiting an extensive English language bookstore where I purchased a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita." I left Seoul at 5:00, hoping to return again soon. As long as I keep having positive experiences like the last two visits, Seoul has the potential to crack my top five favorite cities worldwide.