I left Alaska for a brief visit in San Francisco with some friends and then boarded a Korean Air direct flight to Incheon, South Korea. The flight took 12 hours. I finished reading Stephen King’s book, ‘On Writing’. I felt a little uncomfortable about it because it’s the only Stephen King book I’ve read. I’ve enjoyed producer’s interpretations via films over the years and in some cases I lazily wait for the films. On Writing was an insightful tool into Stephen and his family’s life as well as enlightening on the subject of writing. There are quite a few creative and structural utensils in his toolbox. I keep hearing in my head, ‘2nd draft = 1st draft – 10%’ and ‘Shut the bloody door!’ I was unaware that Mr. Smith and his Rottweiler had used their van as a bowling ball and Stephen King as their bowling pin. That was an epic part of a comfortable and knowledgeable read. I recommend it to any writer.
I landed in Incheon with a very twisted body clock. If I had my eyes closed through out the flight I wouldn’t have known to go to sleep or stay up. First thing I did was turn on BBC and watched a plane fall out of the sky over Taipei, always a comforting feeling. At least there were survivors and my heart goes with those that didn’t make it and their families for their loss.
The first thing I thought of was that I’ve been irregularly coming to South Korea over the last 20 years. Then I realized I’d been coming to South East Asia for even longer. My diet changes immediately and so does my disposition. Everyday something new is on the horizon and I look forward to meeting new people, different foods, new sights and I have the comfort of knowing where I am.
I’m on Chongno-ga (street). This street has been here since Seoul was built. In the Seoul Museum of History there are paintings and models of Seoul then and now and Chongno has been a part of it. Back in the day it was a broad street with merchants and entertainers periodically. Some eras of the Joseon Dynasty weren’t crazy about wasting time due to their Confucianist beliefs. Books and entertainment for pleasure were frowned upon at times but eventually succumbed to the mass's diverse tastes.
When I left I walked behind the museum to have a look at Gyeonghuigung Palace. Construction of this royal palace began in 1617 and took 5 years to complete. During the Japanese occupation the palace was destroyed and later when the occupation ended was rebuilt. Many of the palaces in Seoul came to the same fate. The five palaces in Seoul honor Korean ancestors both royal and scholarly and identify their individuality and culture.
Through history the other culprit to destruction was fire. Excavations for new buildings, subways, under ground malls all produce a plethora of rich cultural history in the area and are collected at the Seoul Museum of History for your viewing. The museum was free when I went. The date is February 5th and the temperature is around 4 C/ 40 F. The sun is out and warming when the wind is still.
I turned my attention to Changdeokgung Palace to see the Secret Garden, also known as the Forbidden Garden. The grounds to this Palace are truly impressive and expansive. I walked around for an hour and one half looking at the many other buildings and stonework of the palace before an English language tour started at the Secret Garden gate. Most of the buildings have in-floor heating with stone supports containing the heat and smoke close to the interior floors. The basic structural ingredients were stones retaining heat, clay to absorb toxins, and an oily membrane of thick paper used as a vapor barrier keeping smoke from coming through the floor.
The secret garden covers about two thirds of the grounds and only for royalty. It was the ‘forbidden garden’ because people couldn’t enter without permission from the King of the times. The interesting thing about this garden compared to others is that the engineers who built it used the original landscape verses excavation and terracing. Some of the older trees are around 300 years old with the oldest being approximately 750 years old. In Korea, front yards can be rather barren for festivities and family use while gardens are typically in the back of the house to insure un-interrupted tending and growth through spring to fall.
Before King Sejong and his scholars created Hangul in the 15thcentury only scholars and royalty could read and they used this to separate themselves from common civilians. Under protest King Sejong The Great published the Hangul alphabet in 1446 and after the first Japanese occupation it became the writing language of the country allowing all Koreans to learn using a common tool both royal and lay person.
Within the walls in the farthest reaches of the secret garden there is a library, ponds, gazebos, and tranquil meditation sites. Due to the distance from the royal kitchen a secondary small humble kitchen was built. There is no chimney on the roof, the smoke is pulled down by airflow below the kitchen and exits through a stone passage way separate from the building and humbly floats away between an engineered manmade rock outcrop.
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