I felt both naked and relieved that I didn’t bring my computer with me to Seoul, South Korea. Naked because I routinely depend upon my laptop to fill in down times while checking my favorite websites for entertainment and pseudo knowledge. In the past I have also taken these occasions to write about my experiences in a real time manner in order to capture those memorable moments and eventually construct a travel compendium for my blog. But this time I privately felt relieved in that I had one less thing to worry about protecting or losing, as well as the nagging feeling that I must write something of interest. I truly felt free of this ever-present burden of the past.
We watched a hundred You Tube videos about Korea including a headstart on how to navigate the circa 500 station labyrinth of a subway system and a similarly complex bus system that was equally challenging to master. And after an additional few hundred hours of study, Gerri came up with a balanced itinerary for our 10-day trip to Korea. With nearly half of the country’s population in Seoul and its population metastasis to adjoining areas that extends its population to 25 million people, there is a lot to see and a lot to do. With so much so readily available for interested travelers to view on You Tube, the following is focused more on some of the quirky highlights of our trip entirely from my perspective.
It’s the stair steps baby! Steps and more steps and then some. About 400 a day when navigating to our tourist outings. The subway was our preferred method of travel but so many deep to the ground levels of subways found in Seoul to descend to, and not enough visible escalators to lessen the pain. To be sure, you needed to be in pretty good shape to get TO any subway as you descend into the bowels of Seoul’s subway infrastructure. While you need enough strength and joint mobility to navigate TO the subway, once there, there are seats dedicated to the elderly (US) and infirmed and others for pregnant women. But if you could make down the endless flight of stairs to get to the proper subway, you probably don’t need to sit in comfort after surviving the endless and challenging concrete terrain to get there. To prove I’m not exaggerating, at its lowest point in the earth, the Seoul subway system extends 272 feet below street level – equivalent to a 12-story building!
And to make matters worse, on one of the last few days of our trip, Gerri and I found one vertically oriented, massive Korean Diaso that was 12 stories high. We walked all the way up because waiting on the long elevator queue seemed a worse idea. Twenty steps per floor gave us a 240 step start on our competition for the most stair steps travelled in one day. Truth be told, we decided to walk back to our hotel after this unexpected knee warping challenge course rather than risk having to descend and ascend a few more stairways to get to the nearest subway line that would shoot us back to near our hotel.
Beautiful people, only the occasional old Korean that we occasioned had any wrinkles that were visible without a microscope, everyone else looked ageless and manikin-like. And this is not due to Koreans not exercising their facial expression with laugh and brow lines, neck sagging, skin discoloration, etc. But, between their genetics, plastic surgery obsession, and skin care industry overabundance, they clearly have created a society with the most youthful look of humans of any country that I have visited – circa 100. This makes it impossible to guess anyone’s age, ironically in a country where age does give you status and respect. I guess it’s not worth that status to let your skin waste away, at least to Koreans. And besides the plethora of skin rejuvenating centers ready to take your money for all sorts of “promised” methods to make your skin look younger, the most ubiquitous monopoly of retail skin product conglomerates found on every street corner is Olive Young, like weeds on an unattended barren field, will drain the remainder of your Won without apology.
The make beautiful society is not only to serve one’s vanity, it is also of value when competing for jobs and roles in a society that is so fiercely competitive that the only thing that distinguishes applicants to any position is how attractive they are and how they present themselves.
Getting away from plastic surgery and face creams, one entirely unexpected pleasure that was truly one of the highlights of my Korean experience was finding fresh figs at small fruit and vegetable stands around the city. No joke: I love, love, love fresh figs – my Middle Eastern heritage. A rather large bin of about 35-50 figs was selling for 7,000 yuan = $5.25! I couldn’t believe it. I consumed 4 bins in three days – it was truly a moving experience. I would have to return to Turkey to get a better deal and who knows whether that is still true.
However, in general, it was difficult to find food to our liking although we did try a number of Korean cooked foods including kimchee. I was surprised to discover that when the kimchee is not seasoned too hot, it was actually pleasantly edible. But in Korea, unlike the other Asian countries that we frequent on an annual basis, food selection was not easy and meal satisfaction was not a given. I was excited when we found a ramen shop one afternoon, and we were happy eating the sugar bloated street food, or recognizable items from the many bakeries that have sprouted in most neighborhoods as well as Korean shopping centers.
To be expected, we went to palaces, shrines, tombs, secret gardens, the DMZ, skin care clinics, markets, a library (Starfield), museums, a massage clinic, a man-made stream (Cheonggyecheon), a local community with century old preserved homes (Hanok Village), viewed early autumn foliage, and experienced Insadong nightlife stuffed with Koreans and Chinese tourists who crowded the streets making it impossible to navigate from one place to the next without getting a headache and/or getting lost. But after all, we were not the spryest of folks walking the streets; few our age would even try. Perhaps if we had made our first visit to Korea a half century ago, we would have really liked being a part of the vibrant nightlife of Korea.
Korea was clean; Korea was safe. CCTV’s everywhere; make my day! See how long it takes for the gendarmes to find you if you venture to commit a crime. It’s really calming to be in a city, state, country where crime and random violence just doesn’t occur! That’s why we love Asia so much. But Korea was also the most expensive of the Asian countries we regularly visit….not like the US, but like the US maybe 7-8 years ago.
I loved learning about Korea, how rapidly it has emerged from being one of the poorest to one of the richest countries in the world. Working hard is not an option, even if you are six years old and your parents have dedicated their lives to make you competitive and successful. It’s a full-time job for not only the poor child but the family, especially the mother!! But herein lies the problem that the world recognizes as Korea’s major present and emerging problem: Korea’s birth rate is 0.6 to 0.8 depending upon who you ask. I asked Gemini “At a birth rate of 0.6 or 0.8, assuming historical trends, how long before Korea's population is cut in half?” Below is the answer.
If South Korea’s total fertility rate remains locked at 0.6 or 0.8, official demographic models project that the nation's current population of ~51.7 million will be cut exactly in half by the late 2080s (roughly 60 to 65 years from now).
I asked several Korean’s their solution for this depressingly inadequate birth rate – the lowest of any country that I am familiar with (2.1 is necessary to sustain a country’s population by substituting those dying with those newly born). They honestly had nothing to contribute to the situation other than to speculate that providing even more financial incentives to families/mothers to have children and for that matter to get married might help increase the birth rate.
Will the country continue to expand, prosper and get richer by the day only to see their population shrink to extinction because of the pressures they have placed upon themselves to achieve the financial stability and success some of them have recently enjoyed? Is it all worth it? Maybe, by comparison, the North Korean’s don’t have such a bad life after all………..
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