Category: Blog

Light years ahead of its northern brother, South Korea is a modern nation well advanced into modernity but that hasn’t forgotten its roots. In spite of a last century spent torn successively by Japanese occupation, a brutal war, a dictatorship and a fulgurant evolution towards first world nationhood, the Koreans have managed to remain proud, friendly and traditional people. Them too not being spared by chain stores, franchised cafés (Koreans love coffee) and restaurants we are all too familiar with – hallmarks of a now globalized culture – they nonetheless remain distinctively Asian. Things are handed out with two hands, shoes are removed upon entering a house, a good meal is eaten sitting on the floor and old ladies push you over in the metro without excusing themselves, because they the elderly are the ones who deserve respect.

Souh Korea, while essentially mono-cultural in its social fabric, is full of expatriates just working there (the US still has a lot of soldiers deployed there), taking a university semester abroad or teaching English. Out on the streets, they will not pay attention to you, not in the large cities anyway, but enter a barbecue joint in a back-alley or order a typical late-night snack at a food-truck, show up where they are not expecting white faces and they will be delighted to teach you their ways and share a drink or two with you. Even if their English is poor to non-existent.

Thankfully the Koreans are warm people, because climate wise though, it’s another story. I’ll blame it on my ignorance, but I never expected the country to be so cold during the winter. My couple first days were sort of comfortable, but it got below zero quite fast, which sadly, takes a lot away from the pleasure of walking around cities, which is my favorite way of sightseeing. South Korea is very mountainous and features numerous small islands around its coasts but sadly, these things can only be properly enjoyed in pleasurable temperature so I did not bother with them and stuck to touring cities.

Seoul

I was recommend a guesthouse by Jean-Michel but got no luck at getting a room. On weekends, the capital gets stormed by crowds of students and expats English teachers escaping from their smaller villages to get their share of Seoul’s crazy nightlife. The tenants were kind enough to direct me to a nearby establishment in which I spent a quiet night recovering from that illness I had been carrying over from my trip up North, but the following day I checked out in search for a more backpacker friendly hostel. Guesthouses are quiet, cozy and intimate. A perfect way to spend nights if you are travelling with your other half or simply in search of peace or wanting to take a break from the hectic pace of partying that generally goes in hostels, but was not the kind of stay I wanted for myself.

Some minutes on the web and I had soon found a nearby alternative: Basecamp. Normally, I do not bother writing about the places that I stay in on this blog because in true honesty, they generally end up being a twist on the same old recipe. Basecamp however, felt different. It was the low season, the levels of occupancy were way below what they normally are, but the crowd, decor and atmosphere I found there was out of the ordinary: it felt like a home away from home. A comfortable neatly decorated establishment with a very chilled-out core of people (staff and “permanent” guests) and plenty of space to get comfortable. After long days of sightseeing, coming back there felt just like returning to a pad you are renting with a bunch of good friends.

That very same day that I arrived, it was someone birthday so we did the obvious thing to do on that occasion while in Seoul: we went for some drinks in Hongdae. The bars themselves were nothing to write about, the interesting part came afterwards: the jjimjilbang. Koreans are fond of hot baths and time of manly (or womanly, they are segregated) relaxing with their buddies or on their own and the jimjilbangs provide just that opportunity to recuperate from a hard day’s work or hard night drinking. A 24/7 spa complex with sauna, cold and different levels of hot pools, restaurant, barbershop, books, and even a huge area to crash afterwards, it has everything one needs for a quick getaway from the stress or city life. So all inebriated that we were at 3 am, we all undressed, went through a couple of cycles of hot and cold and then collapsed into sleep on the heated floor in the lower levels, all that for less than 10$. It was great fun.

A couple hours later tough, I woke up to a classic case of “Where the f*ck am I?”. Dehydrated, could not find any of my friends (some where still there, it was just hard telling one Korean from another in that situation) an thoroughly confused, I dressed up, exited the jimjilbang and set off in a random direction; we had switched bars too many times the last night for me to remember where I was. Luckily, my guardian angel was watching over me that morning. I managed to stumble my way back to the hostel in optimal time and then went right back to bed.

– I’m currently writing those lines on a rough sea aboard a ferry towards Japan while sipping on some makgeolli (rice wine). A weird feeling I tell you! –

Anyway, the subsequent days would be filled with aimlessly walking around, checking cool architecture, going to museums and eating some weird things at street stalls or in restaurants. Seoul has a couple of historical landmarks, some palaces mainly, but frankly they look just like what can be found China and as a matter of fact, are self-admittedly inspired by that culture. Otherwise, no must-see sights like most European capitals usually have. In many regards, it compares itself to cities like those found in North-America which, due to their very recent history, have nothing especially picturesque or typical about them. Compound that with poor Seoul’s history of colonization, war and lightning-fast modernization and you’ve got an overall pretty disappointing touristic experience. That is if you tour it from inside a bus but there is something about Seoul that makes it enjoyable (even in subzero weather) just to be in. Is it the Koreans? Is it the food? Is it the parks? Is it the fact that it’s a city that goes at your own pace? That there is no pressure at all to see all the sights? That whatever the amount of time you can afford to spend visiting, there will be no fear of missing out on anything? Certainly a combination of all. In spite of being the mega-metropolis that it is, Seoul has enough in itself to please every kind of traveler. And it’s not that expensive too, at least not as expensive as I was expecting it to be. A bed in an hostel runs for less than 20$ a night and a good hearty meal of bi bim bap (rice and vegetables) goes for about 6$. Add to the mix plenty of servings of makgeolli, some soju (local vodka), good people, the occasional Korean barbecue and you just might get stuck there (like the guys at Basecamp). On visiting the very-large local seafood market, we discovered that we could get enough sashimi for two for a mere 10$. Made with fresh fish right in front of us, it was a bargain I could not pass on. The next day, I ordered some more from a German girl that was going there as well. I was starting to really like Seoul.

The DMZ

Seoul lies a frightening 40 kilometers from the North Korean border and having been to the other (dark?) side, I just had to get to the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) to see friendly Kim Jong-Un’s land from the south, if not to have a picture of me standing on both sides of a border of which any attempt at crossing it would get you shot in no time. No tour of the DMZ is complete without a visit at the Joint Security Area (JSA), the divide that separates two nations narrows down to a point where both sides of the peninsula are within arm’s reach of one another. I had seen the DMZ during my trip in North Korea and now wanted to see it from the other side, but while we had a snowball fight up north, entering this area from the south was serious business. Single file, not allowed to point, to talk loudly, to take pictures of the South-Korean side and with soldiers in the modified taekwondo pose all around us, the tension was definitely palpable. Quite a paradox and a sad one at that, only furthering the whole absurdity of the situation these two countries are in.

Since the whole area is still under military control, there is no going there on your own, you have to be part of a tour which will normally include other sights in the area to make a complete day but the highlight is always the JSA. We went to the train station on the way to Kaesong that was built ten years ago when both North and South were on a path to friendlier relations (no longer the case) and visited the third tunnel, one of many underground passages the North Koreans dug under the DMZ to invade the south. We were also supposed to visit an observatory where North Koreans casually going about their lives can be spotted with binoculars but it was snowing pretty heavily the whole day so visibility was almost nil; just as it did when I was on the North side. Coincidence? I think not, the North Koreans must have deployed a snow making device in the vicinity to prevent the south from peering into their activities at the border…

I the day ended by visiting the War memorial museum, just to keep on my Korean conflict related sightseeing spree. How did it fare out compared to its North Korean counterpart when it came to historical accuracy? Slightly better I would say, but even more so now I am convinced that the truth about this whole ordeal lies somewhere in between. A truth that will never be known. History follows the course of the winners.

Busan

Not wanting to get stuck I had to leave Seoul and carry on with my travels by heading to Busan, Korea’s second largest metropolis and a port city at the peninsula’s southernmost end. My plan being taking the ferry to Japan, a more ecological, cheaper and potentially more enjoyable option, I had to go there anyway so I figured it would make a nice second stop. The couple days that I stayed in this city were relatively uneventful. I did some hiking in a very large park that apparently used to be a walled-up fortress and at close to 20 kilometers of circumference, the walk took pretty much all the afternoon and actually ended in the dark. The wall having been build on a mountain ridge just like its Chinese counterpart, it provided great views of Busan, built on a rugged coastline among large hills. The following day, I did some more walking around, this time checking out the UN Korean War memorial cemetery and the fish market, which apparently is the largest in Asia. If you have a taste for seafood and are not too sensitive to the strong stench found there, it’s an amazing experience, with tanks full of octopuses, giant spider crabs and other bivalves, you can order your purchase to be prepared and sent to restaurants on the top floor for you to consume it right away, at its freshest. Sadly, I could not find sashimi.

The hostel I was staying at doubled itself as a language school and the gimmick was that travelers were given a bed and food provided they were willing to partake in some cleaning-up duties and chat with the Korean clients that came in to practice some English. A good way to slow travel, working at hostels is and excellent way to deepen your knowledge about an area, meet other people and save some money. About 20 foreigners or so were being employed there, all living in close-quarters in an apartment dedicated to the staff and certainly appearing to be having a blast in Busan. Not that I was really considering stopping there, the urge to get to South-East Asia is too strong for me to take an extended break in cold South-Korea, but the age difference really struck me when in place of a good discussion around some makgeolli, a casual evening out ended up in uncontrollable giggling and selfie taking.

In search of a better crowd to spend my time with, I hopped on the ferry the next day and left the Korean peninsula for Shimonoseki, Japan.

Shanghai

Feels like you just got propelled 20 years into the future, with screens blasting advertising and endless expenses of high-rise buildings ? You’re probably in Shanghai. It’s quite a sight to see and the whole worlds knows it, especially the Chinese, as every single attraction is overrun with them. Amidst the metal and glass monuments to modernity, old towns converted to souvenirs shopping malls, temples with exits through the gift shop can be found and in between, it’s endless rows of stores. Then again, I’m not even sure what is labelled as old really is as I was told on a couple occasions that the Chinese have the habit of demolishing whatever piece of their history still subsist and rebuilding copies with recent materials and techniques.

I visited a few museums, parks and attractions, but knew from the get go that I would only enjoy Shanghai through aimless wander around. On a quest to find where the Chinese actually lived, walk for hours on end aroung the city I did. I ate at small food stalls, sat on benches with grandmothers doing tai chi around me, found real markets and overall I think got a decent introduction to a culture that is vastly different than mine.

After a couple days, No longer expecting anything picturesque in Shanghai proper, I was suggested I could get my fix a short train ride away in Suzhou, nicknamed the “Venice of the east”. An old canal town with vintage oriental architecture and parks, this “small” (about a million of population) city is charming in every sense of the term. I’m not certain how much of the original Suzhou remains, but walking around it’s waterways and streets sure is a refreshing break from it’s giant neighbor. After this “village” tough, it felt like I exhausted the region of it’s immediate touristic possibilities. I’m still wondering how the Lonely Planet came to compare Shanghai with Paris.

On my very first hour walking around the city, I was accosted by two English speaking Chinese “student” ladies who wanted, after a couple minutes conversing, offered me to follow them to a Chinese tea ceremony. Feeling an opportunity to mingle with the locals, I readily accepted and got taken to a small secluded room where we were allowed to try out  many kinds of tea. The whole experience was overall pretty pleasurable, until I was given the bill: 50 US$. Then it settled in: I had been scammed. To my credit, I was tired, impressionable, had no idea on the cost of things in Shanghai and had not gotten the briefing given by all hostels on that classic extortion trick and consequently very vulnerable. Whatever, I took out my wallet an spewed some bills without complaining (in retrospect, I should have). A pretty hefty tourist tax, and all I got was a small Chinese pendant with some bells on it that I hung on my backpack, hoping that the small omnipresent ringing would remind me to keep watch in the future. In all cases, I decided to abuse a bit the two girls that had taken me there and required that they show me a nice typical restaurant in the area, but made sure that this time, the prices were reasonable. The whole experience made them really uncomfortable. Serves them right.

The Chinese consulate wanted me to provide them with a detailed planning of my time here so originally, I had allotted a full week in Shanghai and another one in Beijing. I knew very well that plan would not hold. Two French (one had made it’s way here on his bicycle) I met told me they were moving down to the region around Guilin, famous for its amazing landscapes of Karst formations. After gazing at the pictures of scenery in my Lonely Planet guidebook, I needed no more convincing. My North Korean adventure required me to arrive in Beijing on the 23rd, but upon returning to China, I knew I would have enough time to visit the capital so I decided to postpone my visiting and follow the other two to the south.

Chinese trains

No Chinese adventure is complete without a proper train-ride. Spending 22 hours in the seater class would have amounted to madness, so I opted for a bed in the “hard sleeper” class. A bed I said, but nothing to do with the cozy cabins we normally picture in overnight trains, here it’s small compartments three levels high by two wide and there are not much seating space besides a handful of folding seats and the lower level beds. Thankfully, I had two french companions but all throughout the ride we bathed in Chinese culture with no privacy whatsoever. Children crying, overcrowding, loud laughters, lots of eating of peculiar snacks, smoking and spitting and to crown it all, a convict (accompanied by two guards) was occupying the upper bed, chained to to the bed post. Him only was responsible for much of the disturbance in the area and by the looks the locals gave him, even they thought he was obnoxious.

Just to make sure the culture clash was not only going to be on their favor, the two French had bought camembert and blue cheese they had bought at an expat store in Beijing, which after a couple days of getting lugged around in their backpacks, was smelly as hell. The looks on our neigbour’s fase was priceless as she perplexedly watched us eating what seemed to her a concentrated paste of rotten food. Fair enough, she had been gnawing at chicken feet (not legs, feet) for the last hour but not so surprisingly, she turned away my offer when I presented her with some blue cheese on a piece of bread.

Guilin – Yangshuo – Xingping

Postcard China: rice terraces and cities built amongst karst peaks, at last some natural beauty. After a quick tour of Guilin, I packed my daypack with all the necessities and headed to the Dragon’s backbone rice terraces with the intention of hiking from the village of Dazhai to Ping’an and spending the night there. Walking up and down the rice terraces all by myself was the alone time I finally needed (a rare commodity in China). Finding my way was not so obvious since it looks like most of the signs marking the trail were taken down, but eventually, I arrived at destination. Upon entering a restaurant for dinner, I got invited by an older German couple to sit at their table and at the end of the meal, found me entertaining enough to pay for my food.

The following day, I grabbed my bigger backpack at the hostel where I had left it and moved to Yangshuo, the tourism hub of the region. On the next day, I decided to join a couple of Chinese to Xinping, a village north of Yangshuo apparently very pretty and where it’s possible to do some hiking. The couple of hours I spent there walking around and climbing a peak made me realize that while Yangshuo labeled itself as a peaceful and quiet outdoor oriented town, it was way too large and developed to ever pretend at that. So I went back, grabbed my stuff and moved to Xingping.

I was not too pleased with the crowd at my hostel in Yangshuo as they were mostly Chinese. Not that I have anything against them, but them being quite shy and the fact that they speak little to no English makes interacting with them really hard. At the hostel in Xingping were some Mexicans that I had crossed paths with in the rice terraces and other westerners with whom it was easier to have a good time. Anyway, what I did most there was hike around the beautiful scenery. At one point I even ended up in a monastery built at the bottom of a karst peak where a little simple-minded resident monk showed me their Bhuddah shrine inside a massive cave for a very small fee.

After two nights in Xingping and glad I diverted my travel plans to come to this region, I went back to Guilin to catch my train to Beijing.

Beijing, 1st part

Following a grueling 24 hours train-ride, I arrived in the colder capital of China, a brutal change from the 20C plus temperatures of Guilin. The journey was not as bad as I had expected it. My Chinese neighbors were quite interested in my weird looks and behaviors and even offered me chicken feet and a glass of some unknown liquor as tokens of friendship that I both dutifully ate and drank. The thing on me that most struck their attention was my old iPod which, judging by their interest in it, appeared to them as the next generation gadget their (already more advanced) touch-screen cell-phones would evolve towards.

Anyway, I just had two days to kill before I had to leave for North Korea, so I decided to leave the main sights (the Great Wall and the Forbidden City) for afterwards. I walked around, took a stroll on Tiananmen square and checked out the National Museum of China (which it turns is all propaganda). YPT tours, the company that would take me to the DPRK, had organised a night out at an upscale Beijing club where for a comparatively small amount of money we had access to a very generous table-service of sparking wine and vodka. It was quite an experience to hangout around the city’s elite. Or should I say, the city’s elite’s kids, given the age of most of the customers there. Regardless, the light and dance (some employees were paid to dance) shows were impressive enough to warrant the damage to my hearing. I also got to meet my co-travelers and more specifically Jean-Michel, a Frenchman with whom, given we spoke the same language, I would hang around with the most for the coming week. The next day and with a slight hangover, I made my way to the pre-tour briefing and afterwards, me and my new friend went visiting the Temple of Heaven park. Was it not for the November cold, this place would have really lived-up to its name but nonetheless was a beautiful setting to walk around, and so much walking around we did that we both decided that we deserved a treat for supper: Peking duck at a restaurant.

Beijing, 2nd part

Fast forward a couple days and I’m back on a Chinese train, exiting North Korea through Dandong. Not so bad this time, as a chunk of the tour group was there to keep me company, along with a Chinese female basketball team, who – most of them being taller than me – had eyes only for Rowan, a YPT guide that easily took a head on me.

So upon arriving in the capital and while everyone was saying their goodbyes, someone quietly hinted that they were going to McDonald’s. Without any debate we all followed suit and had a nice breakfast at the temple of capitalism. Those couple days spent in the DPRK really had made us sensitive to advertising again. Right upon entering the train station I had noticed that while normally my brain would automatically tune-out all the publicity screens and billboards around me, the fact that it had not been exposed to this constant bombardment of colors and text for a few days made me notice every ad within range. Well played Ronald, well played…

Anyway, not a whole lot more happened The constant drinking and partying in North Korea had gotten the best of me and had left my body severely incapacitated with a cold that would endure for the coming week. However, In the evening, I managed to muster the energy to go for a couple beers with some people that had been on my tour. The next day I met up with Jean-Michel for a tour of the Forbidden City, which ended up to be just an oversized version of temples complexes found everywhere in China; had to check that off the list, but overall a big disappointment. Feeling even sicker the next day, I took it easy because the following morning, I had to go check out the Great Wall because no visit to Beijing would be complete without seeing it.

Every tourism agency runs tours to the Great Wall. They are pretty expensive and mostly take you to renovated sections of this monument. The Chinese, true to their habit of turning anything authentic into fake copies, have entirely rebuilt some sections, installed chairlifts and allowed the souvenirs shops to spread around like weed. But the Great Wall, as its name implies, is great (in length, though not visible from space) and extends in many separate sections for hundreds of kilometers, so most of it still sits in its original, dilapidated state. Getting to it requires a bit of hiking but since the wall serpents on ridges, its always in view, you can’t get lost. So I decided to go on my own, took a cab to small village and started walking up to the wall and once I reached it, was rewarded with the already gorgeous view normally found atop mountains but as an extra, the wall stretching in both directions, following ridges and crossing valleys. I could not have wished for something more picturesque. An hour of walking east and the section of the wall that I was on soon linked up to a renovated stretch with all its touristic amenities, including the bus that would take me back to the capital. I met up with my French friend again in Beijing for some snacks at the Dong Hua Men Night Market. Some special snacks indeed, centipedes, larvae of all sorts, scorpions, grass hoppers, sea worms, kidneys, testicles, penises, the list goes on. We decided to go conservative and try some beetles (crispy) and scorpions (crispy as well but with chewy insides). Not something we would both eat everyday, which is why we wanted to go together. To have a witness of this edible exploit and someone to motivate the other into eating strange stuff.

The wall being the last item I needed to cross off my list, the time came to move on with my travels: to South Korea by boat. Train ride out of Beijing, a quick night in Qingdao (which was nothing worth writing about (also probably the worst hostel night I have ever had)) and I found myself aboard a ferry on my way to Incheon.

In China, everything happens on a larger scale.

Buildings are higher and more numerous. Trains are faster and bigger. Crowds are larger and denser. It truly is, a world of its own, with challenges to your habits and perceptions waiting around every corner. China is evolving at a frantic pace, where progress is dictated by large scale economics and government policy, seemingly unabated by traditions. With screens everywhere, big or small, in many regards China feels futuristic. Yet, in between large modern concrete and metal towers, the Chinese live their culture split between different eras, where a cell-phone shop neighbours one selling supertitious items. Where whole blocks gather at a few small kitchens for the evening meal besides a Starbucks.

It is a country of contrasts where sadly, it often seems like time has not been alowed to take its due course and things have been pressed on to take shape faster than they should have. Shanghai, certainly the business hub of China, is mostly soulless and bland, whith high-rise buildings of dubious design and endless streets of fashion stores. Making a profit, rather than culture and history, are what matters. Beijing has done a better job at safeguarding its historical assets, but in between, charming hutongs (old style houses) are being demolished every day to make way for malls and apartments. Sometimes, it’s painful to come to the realization that no one will be spared by consumerism.

The pace of life is dizzying and the scale of urbanization is mind-boggling. China will not be everyone’s idea of a vacation I’ll admit, but if anything, it should at least be given a chance for the variety and originality of its cuisine. Nothing at all to do with the ubiquitous all-you-can eat buffet, many unseasoned westerners would shy away from most of what’s available here, but with even a small interest of trying new things you should be rewarded with a different dish every meal. At least that has been that case so far for me. In my opinion, this is where the cultural divide between us and them is at its most striking: the vegetables, the fruits, the meat, the snacks, the recipes; everything is different (and eaten with chopsticks).

China is large and multi-faceted. I was well aware of that when I first set foot in it, but reading my Lonely Planet guide and talking to other tourists ended up convincing me that I would have to come back, probably for eastern China and Mongolia, which from what I’ve heard, is culturally as far from the frantic west coast as it is distant on the Chinese map. The only thing that can become a handful are the Chinese themselves, They are loud, they spit constantly and blatantly, they are disrespectful and in restaurants its a guaranteed concert of slurping and chewing sounds, let alone the smoking. I’ll blame that on cultural differences, take the spitting for example: we expel microbe-filled mucus in tissues that we put right back in our pockets, whereas they expel them on the surface that people are the least likely to come in direct contact with: the floor. Differing conceptions, but for a society where everyone is given a much more reduced personal bubble than in ours, I would have expected better manners.

Otherwise, China is amazing (but demanding). And if ever you want to come about and visit, please avoid the tours, you’ll miss the most interesting. The little restaurants, the markets, the labyrinth like old towns, the small monk wanting to show you around his temple. To my surprise, the Chinese travel a lot around their own country, so most things of interest will be tourism oriented, with plenty of hotels, hostels and restaurants to suit every taste. And I’ve never felt more safe there than anywhere in the world, not even at home. The Chinese don’t steal. They will leave their scooter running while getting something in a store without a second thought. You’ll see women and children walking around in even the darkest back alleys and I’ve even heard of someone forgetting their passport for full-day on a bench in a changing room and it was still there when she came back. As long as you look both ways when crossing the streets, the worst that could happen is an overly spicy soup.