Seoul reborn as a high tech metropolis
Freshly arrived in Seoul-Inchon Airport and booked into a hotel beside the older Lotte Seoul Hotel drop- off point, I board the airport bus. I am too jet-lagged to entertain the possibility of a metropolis of 10 million having more than one Lotte Hotel.
Thus I wind up near Lotte World, conceived as the Korean answer to Disneyland, a place where Larry and Lotte stand in for Mickey and Minnie.
The happy shrieks from gyrating waltzers and rides are drifting from across the road. In the afternoon warmth, growing sweaty from the weight of my backpack, I almost fancy they are laughing at me.
Still it doesn’t take long to flag a taxi and I am off again. Seoul is divided into 25 gu (administrative districts), divided by the Han river. Most of the historic city is on the northside, most notably the main palace complex. And the ride towards the Han comes with a little reminder of home: as a rule, the richer types gravitate south of the river.
The ‘Gangnam style’ internet sensation put this most salubrious Seoul district on the map in 2012. Part of me feels a grudging respect for the chubby Psy, a Korean on the wrong side of 35 in an industry in thrall to the tyrannical beauty of mostly American 20-somethings. All the same, Psy is a rather unlikely poster boy for Seoul, the capital since 1394, pulverised during the 1950-53 Korean War and reborn as a high tech metropolis, the setting for the 1988 Olympic Games and begetting Samsung, Kia, and Daewoo.
“Very, very rich people,” says the driver, nodding towards some glass and concrete cubes perched atop a series of towers, “the most expensive apartments in Seoul.”
I am nearly afraid to contemplate what the rents in those towers must be. Psy’s single alternately celebrates or satirises the style of Gangnam, where the capital is never more narcissistic or aggressively trendy. But it’s not the residents that stick in the memory as much as the buildings. With plenty of open spaces and a lack of historic monuments, the architects had a wide canvas in the area. Typical examples include the Kring Culture Space which resembles a massive slab of Swiss cheese, or the curvaceous GT Tower.
But Seoul’s north-side, unlike that of my hometown, is where most of the historic buildings are found.
Even so, I am on the 18th floor of the President Hotel with the mountains encircling the city just about peeping over reefs of tower blocks. The sides of many pulse and flash: screens as high as two-storey houses loom over the streets. The television in my room comes with more threats from the North. The border is a mere 50km away and for six decades the prospect of renewed war has hung like a dark cloud on the horizon. Perhaps unsurprisingly, locals I meet are nonchalant.
“This happens every year,” says one resident in response to more news reports suggestion impending Armageddon. Moreover, the government has also found a way to generate revenue from the impasse. To get to the demilitarised zone (DMZ) it is advisable to book a few days in advance. The best tour is offered by the United Services Organisation, Uncle Sam’s social and entertainments organisation. Indeed when I join a bus and reach Mount Dora, there is already a party of young Americans on leave from one of the bases attached to the US Forces Korea.
For a few won, it is possible to view the north through mounted binoculars. The DMZ is 4km wide and stretches for 240km, bisecting the peninsula.
Visitors are advised not to take photographs. North Korean lenses are almost certainly directed on this hill at all times. To pull out a large camera or worse, for it to flash, would be risking too much when so many triggers are primed such a short distance away.
I can see the outskirts of the industrial city of Kaesong and nearby, the 160-metre high flagpole outside Kijeong-dong, an uninhabited ‘propaganda village’.
The North Koreans ordered Kijeong-dong into existence in the 1950s so that southerners living near the border would think their neighbour really was a land of plenty. It seems ludicrous now: South Korea is said to produce more in a day than North Korea does in a year.
Even so, I hear stories of soldiers going into the village and turning on lights within the empty houses by night to perpetuate the illusion of habitation.
A bus ride takes me to one of four tunnels dug under the DMZ that have been discovered since 1974. I have to don a hard hat and grip a hand rail as I tramp down the tunnel, 73 metres underground and running for 265 metres. The slope of the tunnel ensures that returning to the surface will burn away excess calories. When this particular tunnel was inadvertently discovered by the South Korean military in 1978, the North made the bizarre claim that they had been digging a coal mine. No matter that there are no seams in the area; the North Koreans had smeared the rocks with coal dust.
The return to Seoul also comes with a traditional meal. At any time in Korea, it is easy to find cheap dishes. From the major restaurants to side-street snack bars, the selection is excellent.
The major elements of Korean food include garlic, ginger, green onion, black pepper and sesame oil. The dishes are given their local flavour through a combination of sauces: ganjang (soy) doenjang (soybean paste), gochujang (red pepper paste) and are always served with side dishes such as soup, boiled rice and kimchi (spicy cabbage).
This is the cornerstone of Korean cuisine and while its sticky and pale orange flaps may seem unappetising to the uninitiated, it is surprising how fast kimchi grows on the diner. Centuries ago it was a method of pickling vegetables to preserve them in winter, but now there are nearly 200 varieties of kimchi. Other snacks include gimbap (rice rolls flavoured with sesame oil), mandu (meat or vegetable dumplings) or juk (rice porridge).
Delicacies like these are the perfect preparation for the fortified temple and palace complexes that were the legacies of the Koryo and Choson Dynasties.
The most important of the five palaces in the capitals is Gyeongbokgung which was built in the 14th century. It is a short walk from the thoroughfare of Insa Dong, the place to buy traditional crafts and silks, to the multi-layered gateway. All of the five palaces are easily accessible, though many have been partially rebuilt after the destruction wrought during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation.
I descend into the Seoul Metro, which has 18 lines and is the second busiest in the world. Gangnam Style is no online fabrication and my hastily thrown- together apparel makes me feel like a barbarian amid the immaculate coiffeurs and designer labels. It occurs to me that I might well run into Psy in one of these carriages, though he might be hard to pick out at first.
From Cork, it is possible to get to Seoul with British Airways (approx €910 via Heathrow), KLM (approx €950 Amsterdam).
Autumn, when the trees blaze, is spectacular. Winters can be icy but not punishing. June-July tends to be hot and rainy.
Insa Dong on the north side is the place to get bargains if seeking artwork, calligraphy, sculptures etc. Itaewon’s markets are frequented by foreign residents and Dongdaemun Market is the largest in Asia.
If feeling adventurous, the traditional fortified wooden and stone houses called hanok are a delight. A number of these in the Bukchon area near the Gyeongbukgong palace have been converted into guest houses with television and electricity. Top range hotels include the Westin Chosun near City Hall metro station and the Park Hyatt south of the Han River, near the COEX business tower.
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