I Carry Lemons Around My Neck

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels

I carry lemons around my neck.

But not by choice.

They sway as I walk

And I lean into them.

If not, the bitterness batters and blinds me,

So it's better to avoid a faceful of citrus.

Yet the lemons will not leave if I do nothing by accommodate.

The acid burns my broken skin

As I judge the weight.

"how stupid it is, that lemons, of all things, constrict me so much," I think to myself.

But the more I lift, the more they swell,

unjustified justifications concentrating inside.

It takes until they thud to the floor

For me to be able to turn to you.

"Can you forgive me?" you ask.

"After some lemonade, perhaps."

Seoul 2022: Part 4 - Changgyeonggung Palace

(continued from part 3)

We did eventually find the ticket office, and after a call with Yoomin (who let me know she was feeling ill and likely wouldn’t see me that night), Kelly and I entered Changgyeonggung Palace. We saw the people who had been in traditional dress before had joined a larger group who were about to head inside too. Inside were the large dusty courtyards and grand palace complexes, the same as they had been in 2017, except this time it was not under a large layer of snow, and I wasn’t freezing to death. The weather made investigating the site much nicer, as well as give it a new background.

What I really enjoy about the architecture is how its so clearly a different model, not just a style. From my limited knowledge it’s because of the ‘silver ratio’ which influenced architecture more than the ‘golden ratio’ of Europe, which is why the buildings are multi-tiered instead of equal levels. They’re also made of wood, or at least the ones Kelly and I visited all were. No palaces in the UK are still made of wood. It would explain why they kept getting burnt down by the Japanese every hundred or so years.

25.10.22

25th. Still here talking about what happened last Tuesday. Ironically, the furthest I’ve ever been behind is when I have nothing stopping me from catching up. But I have all day today, so let’s blast this out.

The fact that it’s all wood means they can be painted too, unlike the grand marble constructions back home. Lots of green and floral patterns, although I wasn’t entirely convinced by the scene painted behind one of the thrones. It seemed a little underwhelming to me, considering other palaces have much more, but again why bother when the Japanese will destroy it again in 40 years?

The size of the complex meant that it felt like there were very few people around. A few standout groups included of course the traditional dress troupe, and a few loud students. That was about it. I did feel like I let down a nice man who trusted me to take his photo, since he came back several times to check my shots and finally thanked me and moved on. I can’t help but feel he was dissatisfied.

We wandered independently to the end of the main palace area, and joined up again to visit the secret garden; an area you needed to be escorted through by a guide. When we discovered the precondition, we insisted opted for the cheaper, unguided part of the garden. Couldn’t have been that secret if there was a sign for it, anyway. This part of the grounds compounded my love of seeing Autumn again. Colourful trees all around, leaves on the floor, birdsong! I felt like I haven’t heard birdsong in ages, and now it was a nice accompaniment. Kelly and I talked more as we walked around, first one half of a large pond, then up into a greenhouse modelled after Crystal Palace in London, surprisingly. Kelly and I weren’t inspired by any plant in particular, but it was a nice diversion altogether.

On the other side of the the greenhouse, we saw a cat. I tried to coax it over with the orange, but it meowed and walked off. This was not the first time that day I’d been rejected by a cat, but when it then happened a third time, I decided that stray cats in Korea just aren’t as engaged as they are in Greece and Turkey. Even so, they must have been friendlier than whatever snakes there were around. Why there were so many snakes that there needed to be a sign to warn us about them, I have no idea.

A heron appeared to be walking on water as we walked back alongside the pond. The park carried on for a while, all the way back to the entrance/exit on the other side. There was a beautiful tree with leaves so deep red it could have been smashed raspberries. It was starting to get colder the longer the day drew, so we decided to leave. At last, we were on our way home. Just on the other side of the road from where we exited was an “English” bakery. As we approached, I wondered if it was fetishising the idea of England or was a place that did English goods specifically well. It looked tasty either way.

One last planned visit on the way to the station was the food market, which I was convinced was the same one I visited with Yoomin five years previously. However, it had much less food and far more clothes than I remembered. Then again, it had been five years. Perhaps it had changed. NO trying out spicy squid tentacles this time; instead, we had Korean pancakes that seemed to be made of something with onions in it, and kimchi dumplings that were pretty alright. It was disappointing to see that all of the food stalls sold the same food combinations too. There was no unique stall selling only one kind of food, like Camden Market. Honestly, a little underwhelming. But the food did give our energy levels a much-needed bump that helped us do one last stretch to the underground station.

We walked along a stream that runs just outside the southside of the market, another place I remember from five years ago. The stream was remarkably clean, and even had fish swimming around. There’s nowhere like that in Hong Kong that I’ve seen, it’s all been dirty seawater or small waterfalls in the hills. This was when we started to notice the cold. Out of the sun, in the shade, it was just cold enough to be uncomfortable.

Lastly, above the underground station (or below the DDP depending on your preference), was the DDP. Not the best sentence I’ve ever written, admittedly. The DDP, or Dongdaemun Design Plaza, looks impressive from the outside, and very smooth. This area of Seoul has especially artistic buildings in my opinion. The other side of the road had a building with a wide triangular design for the front. Further down, another building had a loose tessellation of rectangles. Compared to DDP’s more organic, malleable feel, and the palace complex from earlier, it really emphasised how varied the architecture could be in Seoul.

We had a brief wander around the perimeter, spotting a class of (I want to say) upper year high-schoolers all dressed, without exception, in monochrome. I noticed veer little colour in people’s clothing that day, actually. Must be the weather. Carrying on, there was evidence of old walls, stone foundations on the other side of the plaza. Following the pattern previously established, the site had also been destroyed by the Japanese. Kelly laughed in disbelief that this was the only reason that any buildings seemed to ever be destroyed in Seoul. Skirting these old walls led us to what appeared to be a work-in-progress inside the building. Plastic sheets covered the floor and people set up displays, and we had to step around wires and ladders since we were clearly in a place we shouldn’t really have been.

Out on the other side, and back to the courtyard we’d looked down upon when we first arrived. Kelly wanted one last photo from the top of the high staircase before we left, and so she did.

Finally, we went back to the hostel. I tried to write more in my journal, but I couldn’t help being an extrovert and talking to people instead. One of the people was Hanna, a German inline skater who had sprained her ankle when she missed a step going down a staircase. She was laid up in the hostel for now and wouldn’t be heading out for any late nights for now. Apparently, Korea also has the best inline skating culture in the world, which is why she came over to train., Now it was a long way to come to rest your feet on a chair. Because she was house-bound, we raised the idea of ordering in food and watching a movie instead. Hanna was adamant that we watch ‘Train to Busan’, her absolute favourite film of all time, and everyone agreed on fried chicken for food. A few of us nipped around the corner to get it from an overly generous chicken shop. They gave us so much chicken (cheese, original, soy sauce, and sticky (gochujang?) seasoned) that we couldn't finish it all, even between four people. It was all amazing. ‘Train to Busan’ was a lot of fun, although Hanna made fun of my attempts to analyse the zombies and what they could stand for. So ended one long day.

Seoul 2022: Part 3 - Insandong Street and Bukchon Hanok Village

(continued from part 2)

Not the Changing of the Guard. That's something else, apparently.

21.10.22

Sleeping at hostels has always been a 50/50 split between normal and absent. Guess which one it was last night? They had the same bedding as my hostel in Skopje.

Breakfast is a great opportunity to meet new people, as well as talk to some of the few I had not met the night before. There were an unusual amount of German and Dutch travellers for whatever reason. Then again, in my experience, that shouldn’t have been too surprising. They do seem to get around a lot.

In classic fashion, I had no plan aside from making it down for breakfast at 9, but after a few conversations over a cup of tea and some Frosties, a few of us decided it might be nice to follow Kelly (who is from Houston originally but is now based in Seattle, which she much prefers because of the hiking and the trees. She also likes to camp) on her visit to a few streets, palaces, and food markets. By 10:30, no one else was ready, so just her and I left together.

After living in Hong Kong for half a year, I have so many names for the Underground that I'm almost disappointed that there were none for Seoul’s/ The few stops from Hapjeong to City Hall had an unrealistic number of universities too. On balance, I think the MTR is smother and less complicated to navigate, but that’s enough about that.

When we emerged, the day was the perfect pairing of Autumn coolness and clear sky. The sun was hot on our backs, but the air was cold. Kelly’s plan had us walking to each place on the list: Gyeongbokgung Palace, Insadong Street, Bukchon, Changdeokgung, Gwangjang market, and then anything else. It was a packed schedule, although it never felt like we were rushing.

Almost as soon as we had started to walk, we were blocked by a ‘changing of the guard’ ceremony where it looked like the soldiers had dressed as every colour of the rainbow. The drummer terrified me when he hit it the first time.

“This is what’s so weird about travelling. You feel like you always run into cultural events randomly when you aren’t even trying to,” I remarked. Kelly agreed.

Gwanghwamun Square has massive statues of men holding swords and a kind old giant about to read a bedtime story. About the base of the row of fountains that run between them are a series of quotes from historical Korean figures. Most were fairly good as pithy quotes, of contradictory when read together (die for your country, but never give up your life unless completely necessary) but one quote seemed to Kelly and I a bit too underdeveloped to require a quote. To paraphrase;

“I cannot see the envoy right now; I am in a meeting with my clan.”

Likely it has some deeper meaning about the priority of family and clan over state, regardless of importance, but on first impression it really did just sound like they were saying, “hold a moment I’m on the phone.”

Unfortunately for us, though as expected by Kelly, Gyeongbokgung Palace was closed, so we walked along the main road to find our next stop. Kelly hadn’t relied on maps specifically to help her, since she also liked to get lost in new places, so we wandered in the general direction of where Changdeokgung Palace should have been and hoped for the best. In this way, we didn’t mind deviating to explore side streets when we felt like it. In fact, at one point we turned down Insandong Street without even realising where we were.

The street was where I began to pick up on some of the memories from my last visit. I saw the booth with K-pop idol merchandise; we went into the square where, 5 years ago, I’d had my picture taken with a big Christmas inflatable. This time, I got the opportunity to walk around the rest of it too.

Kelly and I explored up and around the floors surrounding the square out of curiosity, and it turned out to be very reminiscent of King’s Court on Carnaby Street. Any empty space of wall was covered with graffiti, writing and pictures. I openly wondered how many people carry pens and pencils with them in order to spontaneously doodle on walls like that. One of the pillars has a bushel of paper flowers, all of which held unique messages from different people over the years. Only a handful were in English. They were all very cliché: “I love Korea/Jeremy x Samantha/ Looking for a good time? Call xxx-xxxx-xxxx,” that sort of thing.

Around this area we had to cross a sunken courtyard with a very confusing theme of dinosaur heads and pigs. No idea why it was so popular with a bunch of teens. Apparently, it was some kind of playground inside? If you’re confused, join the club, it’s full of dinosaur heads.

On the other side of the main road were some women in traditional dress headed east, which we took as a good sign we were on the right track. But even though we were determined to see the palace at some point before the day ended, we were also easily distracted by pretty streets that led away from the target destination. The most enjoyable was the Bukchon Hanok Village; a part of Seoul that has had its architectural style strictly preserved in a traditional style. It may have been Kelly’s intention all along to head that way, but it seemed like a mutual investigation at the time. There were many flags flying as bunting across the almost entirely pedestrian street, though the countries repeated and were by no means complete in the representation. Near the start, we explored a purpose-built replica of a traditional house, which had wooden walls and lots of open space between rooms. Who would have every guessed, however, that they had plug sockets in 1850s Korea, who knew?

I’d brought an orange with me from Yoomin’s house the night before and taken it with me when I left the hostel to eat. So far that day, I hadn’t. We went into one of the small meeting rooms in the house. Three of the walls were windows (I wonder how scary it would be at night). I asked Kelly sternly to sit down at the low table. I placed the orange on the table.

“I think it’s time we discussed this. I found it in your room. Don’t lie to me Kelly, I know.”

“...you don’t want the orange, do you?”

“I really don’t, can you take it from me please?”

“No.”

“Aww.”

The descriptions about the building sounded more like advertisements than anything else, from the way they were written. Not the most important detail, but nice to know for later.

Back out on the street, Seoul’s preoccupation with coffee shops became a full-blown addiction. All the way up the street were alternating independent artisan coffee shops and art shops. Every. Single. Shop. It was as if there were only two businesses that were given planning permission because somebody t the city planning office or whatever was super annoyed that they had to travel between art galleries and their favourite coffee spot for longer than 20 seconds. Even so, I can’t deny I liked the aesthetics of it. I would be the sort of person to hide out in one of the shops to write, or work in one of the art galleries.

Each time we tried to cut left or right, they were dead ends; though very pretty dead ends it has to be said. They prove people did actually live in these fancy old houses. The one door with barbed wire was less charming to look at, but that’s to be expected.

Finally, we got to the top of the street, and the hill it was built on. It was nice to pause and look back down the way we came, to see the skyscrapers in the middle-distance of an old world frame.

On an unmarked stand, brochures advertised a week of culture in Seoul that was coincidentally happening right now! I looked inside one of them, but it was all in Korean. The only thing in English on the brochure was the line ‘Seoul Culture Week!’ Why even have English at all if that’s literally all there is? Now I’ll never know what I missed out on.

Now we turned right, towards where we would, ideally, very soon, find the palace we had been looking for, and although we could see trees and a large stone wall, I couldn’t help but accidentally try to break into someone's private property because it had a pretty old façade. How is an ignorant foreigner meant to differentiate accessible old houses from private old houses?

We walked parallel to the stone wall until we found an entrance. More small art galleries (one shoe shop whose coloured shoes were arranged in a gradient) passed us by, and I revealed the small fantasy I had of running one: a big floorspace with only 3 or 4 art pieces inside, and otherwise an all-white interior and floor-to ceiling windows at the entrance. Kelly said she always liked the idea of being a baker: making bread and cakes as often as she wanted, as much as she wanted. A little bakery all to herself. She also has no interest in becoming a baker or baking bread in general. Small fantasies are like that.