It’s a colourless February dawn in Seoul, and my cheeks are burning in the minus 2°C wind. My interpreter, James, who has an earnest manner and soft voice, is talking to me in hushed tones. Trying to ignore my numb body, I make a superhuman effort to pay attention.
We’re outside Jongmyo, one of five Unesco World Heritage Sites in the city, which was built to enshrine the spirit tablets of dead kings and queens of the Joseon Dynasty (1300s to 1800s).
We visit on a Saturday, when the park is empty. Evergreen trees sway in the wind, the feeling of emptiness broken by occasional bursts of birdsong. Fittingly, there’s nothing decorative about this sombre place, with its echoing yards, low wooden buildings and raised stone paths.
I attempt to step onto one of the paths, but James tugs my arm.
“These streets are meant to carry only the spirits of the dead,” he whispers.
As the Siberian wind continues to lash us, we visit hall after hall, yanking off our boots before stepping into the sacred spaces, where spirit tablets sit in wooden crates and ancient chests hold royal seals in gold, jade and silver. It is more than two hours later when we walk out of the complex, strangely peaceful, just as Seoul – bright, busy, noisy – comes to life.
I arrived in the South Korean capital two days earlier, and besides having my socks knocked off by the 24/7 public internet connectivity (also available in the sumptuous Kia Opirus that whisks us around the city), my first impression is a jumble of sights, smells and sounds: markets full of fish, seaweed, kimchi, dried stingray and giant, odorous fungi; children dressed in vivid, puffy parkas like fat colourful dumplings; and shopping streets lined with everything from grilled octopus to socks printed with images of Psy, Korea’s one-hit wonder who put Gangnam on the world map.
It’s actually the one place I don’t wish to visit, this bourgeois, southern bank of the fast-flowing Han River that runs from east to west, neatly bisecting Seoul. I’m staying in Gangbuk, the more historic northern half, and my suite at The Shilla – a red, wafer-thin Korean five-star hotel standing on a hill – has a luxurious bed and heated flooring modelled on ondol, the age-old Korean practice of floor-heating. It also boasts a view over the popular tourist hangout N Seoul Tower. Downstairs is a cafe with a fireplace, and a dazzling crystal hung installation by Korean contemporary artist Bahk Seon-Ghi in the soaring atrium.
My week in Seoul kicks off with a workshop in Korean cooking. OME Cooking Lab, run by the birdlike Minseon out of a minuscule apartment on the edge of Gyeongdong Market, is a home-grown business, a far cry from the impersonal schools that cater to tourists.
After a happy morning spent at the market (where I have my first taste of silkworm – metallic and crunchy – and meet a Chinese medicine man who offers me a hot drink to boost my immune system) we buy ingredients for lunch: chicken, assorted vegetables and freshly made kimchi. Returning to the flat, two hours whizz by in making kimchi stew, Andong-style braised spicy chicken and stir-fried glass noodles with vegetables. I’m shown how to prep the veggies by lopping off the corners of each piece; this is done to make the food “well-rounded and well presented”, Minseon explains.
Afterwards, full from our meal and giggling about the praise lavished on me for my "Yan Can Cook" chopping skills, James and I make our way to the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History in downtown Seoul, set on a wide avenue that ends at Gyeongbokgung Palace, a Joseon dynasty edifice constantly besieged by tourists.
The whistle-stop museum tour – conducted in Korean by a harried guide and translated at top speed by poor James – would have been annoying if not for the sheer detail of every exhibit carefully set up within the various halls. I spend an hour absorbed in the horrific minutiae of the Japanese and North Korean invasions, poring over cased displays of sepia-tinted treaties; bloodstained uniforms; lists of the missing, maimed and dead; rusty weapons. Respite comes in the form of the halls dedicated to showing off the technological advances the country has made since the Second Industrial Revolution, and we linger over the prototypes of the electronics manufactured in those early days of economic reform, from gargantuan refrigerators to unwieldy mobile phones.
But nothing is more sobering than the War Memorial, a few kilometres away. The sprawling building, set high above grounds containing old aeroplanes and a naval ship, is full of life-size dioramas that relive important battles in anguish-ridden detail. Parents with little children stop uncertainly in these musty halls, then try to hurry through, but cannot escape the relentless documenting of the bloodshed, from the zone dedicated to the Recovery of the War Dead during the Korean War to trick-art scenery portraying the infamous 1950 bombing of the bridge spanning the Han.
Overwhelmed, we head to Insadong, a narrow alley lined with ceramic-and-art galleries, antique shops and cafes, where we taste ta-rae, traditional taffy made of honey and malt and filled with nuts (5,000 South Korean won [Dh16]), and drink cups of hot, foaming matcha (6,000 won [Dh20]) at O’sulloc Tea House. We settle down for a quiet half-hour of people-watching while discussing reports in a local English-language newspaper – among them a story on president Park Geun-hye’s measured responses to recent threats by North Korea.
“We’re used to it now,” shrugs James. “He [Kim Jong-un] talks, Koreans shake their heads and get on with their lives.”
Not all do, though; I spot at least two anti-North Korea protests outside Seoul City Hall. They’re peacefully conducted, with some sloganeering and waving of banners.
The next two days are spent in Incheon, a city about an hour west of Seoul. A free zone and industrial centre, it has a faintly antiseptic feel, but nevertheless is gaining popularity among millennials as a place to live and work, far away from the gridlocked roads and stacked shoebox high-rises of the capital.
Sitting somewhat incongruously amid all this shiny splendour is Gyeongwonjae Ambassador Incheon, a resort comprising hanok, or traditional Korean houses. The rooms are spacious, with wooden shutters, heated floors, and bathrooms with immense sunken stone baths.
After we have checked in, the staff persuade us to try on some hanbok, Korean national dress. Kitted out in the rich silk robes, we go outside for selfies, instantly regretting the decision: it’s 2°C and we have left our parkas at reception. We pose with frozen smiles, pretending to be a king and queen, and laugh at the surreal pictures: there we are, in front of a beautiful old-style house, looking like something out of a history book, except that steel-and-glass skyscrapers fill the background.
Despite the weather forecast predicting snow that night, the skies stay clear, to my disappointment. Later, we sit down to a six-course meal that includes galbi (barbecued beef), nakji bokum (stir-fried octopus), plum tea, kimchi soup, tempura prawns, steamed rice, kimchi, pickled fish and abalone (55,000 won [Dh181]).
The following morning, we rent bicycles and explore Songo Central Park, a bizarre space with a shallow, man-made stream (complete with ferry and rental boats), garish installations of dolphins and fenced areas housing deer and rabbits.
I’m already yearning to return to Seoul, but instead we head south-east to Gyeongju, designated by Unesco as a city of World Cultural Heritage. The four-hour drive is arduous, and between stops for piping-hot tteokkbokki (rice cakes doused in chilli sauce), sweet coffee and hoduwaja (walnut cake), James and I doze off, occasionally waking to gaze at the landscape whizzing by – hills and industrial areas, washed grey by cold rain. Again, I find myself wishing for snow.
We arrive at our hotel by nightfall, and to my delight, it’s another hanok-style resort, this time more authentic. Hwangnamguan Hanok Village is exactly what it sounds like: tiny wooden buildings housing rooms and suites set round a large courtyard where old-style games are played every evening; it is hugely popular with families based in Seoul.
We’re up at dawn the next day for our trip to the 15th-century Yangdong Village. James is excited; it is the first time he is visiting this Unesco World Heritage Site, and he gives me a quick outline of what to expect: it was built for the nobles of the Joseon dynasty, and their descendants still live in the thatched and tile-roof houses.
Our guide is a lean, long-limbed man clad in the thinnest of jackets, and his long strides easily cover the uphill route. James and I huff and puff in his wake, going from one creaky house to another, tripping through courtyards and elaborate gateways, while he dishes out trivia on the class system and segregation by gender, shaking his head regretfully that no one lives like that anymore.
The next day is spent roaming the grounds of Donggung Palace, built in the Silla era, complete with an exquisite man-made pond, called Wolji. At sundown, the lights come on, and we’re suddenly in fairyland, perfectly reflected in the still waters around us.
My last day is spent in Seoul, and I choose to explore the city on foot. James tags along, in case I "need something translated". We finish in the hip, neon-bright shopping district of Myeong-dong, where we catch a "cooking" show at Nanta Theatre, which involves slapstick comedy, energetic dancing and flying knives and vegetables (tickets from 40,000 won [Dh130]). Later, on a whim, I stop to purchase a pair of Gangnam Style socks for my son. Then, just as I turn around for the 100th time to tell James, "I wish it would snow," the first flakes slowly begin to fall.
ciyer@thenational.ae