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Published: October 9th 2023
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First a stopover, just 30 hours to see Doha. Our plane from London is full of Formula One teams - Aston Martin, Alpine, McLaren and Williams. It is the Qatar Grand Prix next weekend and all the talk on the plane is of temperatures. We land in the early evening, the temperature is 35c but it will drop to around 30c overnight, only to rise again to 40c tomorrow. And this isn't summer, it's October!
The next day we're out early to beat the heat and visit the corniche where traditional wooden dhows bob about at the water's edge. Across the bay, the skyscrapers in the central business district reflect the morning sun - it could be New York or Hong Kong, an international high-rise cityscape. After a short walk we head into the souk, which is a surprisingly original maze of cool alleys that have been carefully restored. The range of goods is vast, from socks and underwear to fresh spices and gold. The souk has plenty of cafes too, no alcohol of course, just tea and shisha pipes.
Eventually the heat is too much for us and we return to rest in our
air conditioned hotel until sunset. In the evening, entering the souk feels like going back in time, especially when we find an area where there are beautiful hunting falcons for sale and a hospital where injured birds can be treated, Around the next corner, we find the rather smelly camel souk and then the smarter art souk where we watch local artists and craftsmen at work. And that's all we have time for. It has been a whirlwind visit and all too soon we have to head on out for our midnight flight to South Korea. It has definitely been worth breaking our journey to see Doha.
Our 8-storey Seoul hotel is very central but hidden down a tiny alley between a coffee shop and a pharmacy. Our alley is lined with fried fish stalls - it looks like they're frying smoked mackerel. It turns out this is how Seoul is, a mixture of shiny high-rise blocks and single-storey traditional houses, of tiny back alleys and six lane highways, of rushing people with their eyes glued to flip-phones and calm queues chatting while a street vendor cooks their red bean pancakes.
Everywhere is busy
but there are large green areas with trees and gardens where we find palaces, shrines and a village of restored Hanok houses to visit. The building styles of these traditional houses remind us of China with curved tiles on the roofs and dragons' heads to ward off evil. The interiors, however, are reminiscent of Japan with wooden floors, dark furniture and paper screens. Bed mats were folded and stored during the day leaving large open-plan living areas. The old houses had wood fired underfloor heating with a stone chimney to take the smoke away, carefully positioned away from the wooden house to prevent fires. This idea clearly did not work very well as we come across many buildings that had been rebuilt more than once due to fire.
We're impressed that we get in to all the palaces free because we are over 65 and you can also get in for free if you dress in traditional Hanok costumes. These costumes can be hired for the day and on Saturday there are lots of people, young and old, dressed up for the occasion. Men in coloured robes and black stovepipe hats and ladies in hooped skirts, their
hair decorated with tiny flowers; it really bring the palaces alive. There if lots of laughter as families pose for photos.
We are aware, of course, that just up the road is unpredictable North Korea. Every subway and underpass is marked as a shelter. However, we were startled when sirens sounded on both of our phones! 'EMERGENCY ALERT' the message starts but the rest is in Korean. We look around but nobody is reacting, are we the only ones who know? A minute later it happens again, so we decide to use Google to translate the message. 'Keep a look out' it says 'for a lost old man. 78 years, 75kg, white hair, blue shirt'. Panic over.
The food is challenging, mainly because we don't know what it is and many menus are only in Korean. The photos don't seem to help! At night we walk to one of the many street markets which are filled with dozens of stalls where you can sit on a stool and watch your dinner be cooked.Tempura-style vegetables, prawns and something that wasn't aubergine after all; deep fried fishy omlette; hot donuts full of custard; mung bean pancakes;
wiggling chopped octopus in chilli soy sauce.Everything is foreign to us; strange smells and flavours, all eaten with chop sticks.
We plan to take the train to Danyang in Central Korea, so use the Metro to get to Seoul's impressive Central Station. Buying the tickets for the next day is simple and luckily the agent points out that the train doesn't actually leave from this Seoul railway station. We'll need to go to Cheongnyangri, ten stops east on the Metro. Good to know!
Cheongnyangri station is smart, too, and our train leaves on time to follow the river valley south-east out of Seoul. The train climbs into Korea's hilly interior to eventually reach Danyang, set on a wide river and surrounded by tree-clad mountains. It is a lovely place and a popular weekend get-away spot for Seoul residents. We arrive on a Sunday lunchtime when it is still busy but by the time we walk back to our guest house after dinner, most people have gone home. One amazing thing is the number of paragliders; this is theplace for the sport in South Korea, particularly for those wanting to take a 'tandem flight'. Starting
high up in the mountains, they glide and swoop down into the steep-sided river valley and, with precision that is hard to believe, land on a 2 metre strip of land between the river and parked cars.
We've come here not only to see Korea's countryside but also to visit Guinsa temple. This is set high up in a narrow mountain valley and from the very first gate it is steep walk up sloping paths and hundreds of steps. On both sides of the valley are meditation and prayer halls, as well as the buildings where monks live. Every building is highly decorated and every hall contains golden Buddhas or other colourful religious icons. Often the gap between the buildings is quite small and eventually the way is blocked by a very ornate multistorey building. We enter and make our way up to, level 5, yet another prayer hall, this one with a huge altar over 20 metres wide. Ever upwards we climb, emerging from the rear of the building on level 7 into the final main square - but the valley is so steep that we are at ground level again!
This is
the top of the temple complex and we look back down the wooded valley over the roofs of the temple buildings and, in the distance, to a range of misty mountains. But this is not the top and a small path leads up to the burial place on the very top of the mountain. We had not realised quite how far this climb was going to be and we're very pleased to eventually arrive, a little breathless, at the smooth green tomb mounds. On the way down we tried to count the steps; over 1,000 plus lots of steep stretches of path … and that was only to the temple's top square. It was good not to have known!
Tomorrow we have a early start to continue our train journey south-east to Gyeongju. More soon.
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