Chuseok is one of the largest festivals in Korean culture; it is a harvest/thanksgiving style festival which merits an entire week of national holiday! Over this period families regroup in their hometowns to pay respect to ancestors while enjoying special Chuseok foods. This movement of people leaves Seoul quite quiet during this period. For a long time I was weighing up whether to travel to a different city, but I am glad I chose to stay in Seoul as attractions are quieter, public transport is easier, and it generally feels like a much more relaxed cityâeven though the space is identical!
This time and space has allowed me to explore some really interesting sites in and around Seoul:
First off, Heyri art valley is an artistic community formed just outside of Seoul. It contains a huge amount of interesting architecture, art galleries and probably one of the densest populations of cafĂ©s Iâve ever seen. Itâs a strange place really and Iâm not sure it entirely lived up to itâs expectation, although I would like to go back and explore it further. It feels like more of the space is comprised of cafĂ©s and kitsch museums rather than interesting or challenging art galleries. However maybe this is just a surface which most visitors dislike, and the real galleries are hidden away only easily accessible to those in the know, or those with the Korean map!
Seoulâs international fireworks festival lay two days before everyone left for Chuseok, and provided the polar opposite of an empty city. Standing on Seogang Bridge, which itself was also full to the brim, I looked over to the south bank of the river where I donât think I could see a square-foot of floor-space. Overcrowded for sure. The fireworks were great, but after 20 minutes they somehow lose their charmâor maybe (as I kind of know) fireworks arenât really my biggest love.
Next I explored the Haneul park sky-garden, a tranquil river-side park 300 steps above ground level. It was comprised of dense wheat-like and sunflower patches giving the illusion of the countryside even though youâre in pretty central Seoul. Itâs great to have such well-constructed park areas, they vary a lot from England. While English parks tend to provide open-space for recreation Korean parks construct themselves for tranquillity, creating pathways through carefully planted plant-life, streams and seating/picnic areas. This approach is funny, as I wonder where youâd go to play recreational sports, but it is definitely very suited for adult generations to quietly relieve the stress of a big city.
On Wednesday I visited Seoul Grand Park which is, in my opinion, a great improvement on an average âFamily Parkâ. It contains a childrenâs park, a theme park with rides, a zoo and a wing of the Museum of Modern Contemporary Arts (MMCA). I personally visited only the zoo and the MMCA. Seoulâs zoo was massive and had a hugely diverse array of animals, but a mixture of the vultures lacking enough space and monkeyâs hands reaching from their cages (mimicking many human images of imprisonment) brings about ethical considerations too large to ignore. Although a zoo like this makes an entertaining and educating day out, it creates miserable and psychologically disfiguring lives for the animalsâŠso an awfully mixed review. The MMCA may feel out of place here, but I in fact think itâs a wonderful idea. Housed in a magnificently large building (likely unavailable within Seoul) it challenges you to the maximum with itâs exhibitions in contemporary art. Unfortunately I could only catch 1 Âœ before closing time so Iâll be sure to head back soon.
On Thursday we ventured to Suwon, a city just south of Seoul which houses Hwaseong–the last fully constructed city wall in Korea! It was a nice way to spend a sunny day outdoors, but it was funny to be on an ‘ancient’ (partly-reconstructed) wall in the middle of a sprawling and bustling city.
As I sit here writing this now, I am exhausted after a hectic weekâwith the above merely being the highlights! Today we, along with a Korean friend and her brother and cousin, climbed to a peak in Bukhansan national parkâwhich is only one hour away from my accommodation and gives you a beautifully awe-inspiring view of the entire city in one direction and a sprawl of mountains in the other (south and north respectively).
Chuseok has been an interesting period, in some ways returning to the âtouristyâ feeling I had when originally arriving here, but with a newfound comfort and confidence in approaching a number of different activities. The feeling is still somewhat strange though. I need to knuckle down over the next couple of weeks with my Korean textbook and really try to learn more of the language, and maybe I will remove the strange âforeigner abroadâ feeling which is accumulating, and unlock a whole new level of Korea. Iâll keep you posted!