A stroll around Seoul

Namdaemoon Gate, Namsan, Lantern Festival

“Osaoseyo”, I spoke in a soft tone, officially welcoming her to Korea after the normal hugging it out. Mihaela had finally arrived after nearly 20 hours of travel and three months of periodic skypeing. Surely she would be tired, surely it would take not hours, but days for her to adjust to the time difference. She was accustomed to New York time and now here she was on the other side of the world. After all, it took me about a week and a half to fully adjust. This is why I somewhat reluctantly mentioned potential weekend plans to go to Seoul and catch a bit of Korean Buddhist culture at the lantern festival. Despite the new sleep schedule and flight fatigue she was excited about the proposition, and so began plans for Saturday's stroll around Seoul.

The main attraction was the lantern parade. The parade is the opening of a weekend festival that celebrates Buddha a week before his birthday. Even though the parade didn't start until 7:00pm we decided to make the hour metro ride into the city earlier in the day so as to stroll around the city and see some sites.

At Mihaela's request, our first stop was National Treasure No. 1, Namdaemun Gate. Namdaemun is one of the four large gates of Seoul Fortress and its name actually means, great south gate. In 2008 an arsonist set fire to the wooden gate and up until two weekends ago it was under construction. The reconstruction of the gate was done in traditional style, using tools that would have been used at the time of original construction and the workers were even wearing clothing that would have been worn during the original construction. The smallest of details were put into place to ensure that the final product would be as authentic as possible.

Next to the gate is Namdaemun market. We walked through the large outdoor market looking over some of the the typical market goods. By this time we were quite hungry as all we had to eat was a small snack of egg cooked over cornbread, a Korean street vendor delicacy. It was around noon and the food vendors of the market were just setting up. We stopped by an old lady who quickly unfolded the plastic tables and brought a couple stools over for sitting. We ordered kimchijeon, a savory pancake made from fermented cabbage and egg. I had had it for the first time a week earlier and, knowing it was tasty, I recommended it as one of Mihaela's first Korean dishes.

Following lunch, at a request of my own, we headed up Namsan (south mountain) a small mountain in the middle of Seoul were you can catch a good panorama of both the newer southern and older northern parts of the city. Namsan is an easy mountain to find if you're ever in Seoul. Shooting up from its peak you can see Seoul North Tower from just about anywhere in the city. Seoul North Tower is also one of Seoul's biggest tourists attractions. The tower is accessible by cable car but we elected to take the long walk up its many stairs. We arrived at the peak just in time to catch the tail end of a martial arts show with traditionally dressed young men fighting each other with wooden swords and chopped standing figures made of straw with their swords and spears. Ironically enough, just minutes later we found ourselves at Seoul's love center with couple after couple loading up the railings with love locks. After a short rest we headed down the hill through a much less crowded forest to catch the cheer rally.

The 'Eoulim Madang' Buddhist Cheer Rally was happening just below Namsan at Dongguk University sports arena. As we slowly made our way down the hill we could hear the sound of the the rally getting louder and louder. The large field was filled with people listening to speeches and songs awaiting the start of the parade later that evening. They seemed to be organized by color, a group of green hanboks (Korean traditional dress) on the right, red on the left, all with their lanterns waiting at the end of their row. Foreigners like myself shuffled to the stands to watch the spectacle from slightly higher up and in the back, a good vantage point for the observer. The songs from a colorful choir at a distance rang out through the outdoor arena. Even though the sights and sounds were nice, we chose to take off after just a short rest at the rally.

We were bound for Jong-ro, the major street in Seoul where the parade would be coming through a couple of hours later. Our walk took us through small side street alley-ways, big boulevards, and your normal avenues until we found a place that I recognized, Cheonggyecheon stream. The stream is state-of-the-art, located in the middle of the busy historical part of the city, and outfitted with stairs, rock bridges, paths, and enough vegetation to distract you from the buildings towering overhead. We just crossed over the stream as we were determined to find some food before the parade began.

Over our bowls of noodles we started hearing the commotion outside. There was music, cheering and clapping. Eventually dinner ended and we found our place just a few folks back from the widest section of Jong-ro avenue to watch the lanterns as they passed. The lotus lantern festival is a modern day version of a Buddhist tradition of lighting lanterns. The tradition dates back to Goryeo Dynasty in Korea (918-1392). The ritual is a way of giving respect to Buddha and the lanterns themselves symbolize wisdom by bringing light into the world¹.

The parade is a way of kicking off the festival and all of those traditionally dressed Koreans that we had seen a couple hours earlier at the cheer rally were the parade participants. Lantern bearing groups were spread-out walking up the large avenue in a parade lasting two hours. Huge groups of lantern bearing Buddhist were separated by floats containing large, expertly constructed lanterns of varies shapes, sizes and colors. Buddhist prophets floated by, temple guards floated by, Buddha himself floated by, even fire breathing dragons floated by, all in lantern form. The large groups were made up of traditionally dressed women, Buddhist monks, or common people. Sometimes those groups were led by a drum pounding band with its members sporting a white uniform with a puffy head dress sporting all the bright colors of the rainbow. In addition to their drumming there was no shortage of movement from the band. The night grew darker and the fires from the lanterns grew brighter. The group of spectators in front of us were called in to join in the parade so Mihai and I took their seats to watch the last few floats slowly pass by with clear view.

Eventually we too followed the crowd up Jong-ro avenue to Jongak station where we were planning to start our long subway commute back to Yeonsu. Knowing that festivities were continuing at the intersection near Jongak I decided to take a quick look before heading back. On my way to the crowd in front of the stage an old lady shoved a large rolled up paper into my hand. I didn't look at it and I didn't really know what it was but it looked like it could be a poster and thought I could use some decoration for my boring white apartment walls. I gave her some money and went on to see the stage spectacle of music and dancing. Later on in the subway I opened up the poster to see lines of Korean script over the head of a bald grumpy man. Despite his grumpy look the poster as a whole looks pretty cool and so I hung it on my fridge but I had to find out who this man is and why he is so grumpy. Known as Dalma in Korean or Bodhidharma in English this apparently grumpy Buddhist monk is credited for bringing Chan (Zen) Buddhism to China and also for teaching the Shaolin monks the martial arts that they're famous for. From what I gather, his grumpy appearance serves to make him look serious, stern and foreign to the Japanese artists who depicted him.

Outdoor recreation, historical sites, traditional food and a cultural event were all packed into one long day in our stroll around Seoul. Not bad for Mihai's first weekend in Korea. 

1http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=1002416