Where Is Namdaemun?

The KTX never ceases to amaze me. Every time I ride it, I think I have the TV programming figured out. I never actually do. I heard the Koreanized version of "Let It Be," and watched interesting things such as:

• A contest wherein the winner shovels a pile of coal into a bobcat the fastest
• More riding lawnmower racing
• 80s American news bloopers?
• A man dressed in a suit that had many pinwheels on it trying to get them all to spin at the same time (it's harder than it looks when some of them are positioned directly behind you or at odd angles)
• As a follow up, a group of people making a pinwheel out of a barrel
• A very scary news report on North Korea. There are a lot of those little bastards! All goose stepping around like they mean business. I don't know about that Kim Jong-il guy.
  

Anyway, the KTX is usually a hoot. So, I pulled into Seoul Station on Friday night and met my friend at an adjacent subway stop. Together, we headed out to Incheon to meet some more folks for a fun night on the town. I was honored to be the first to stay at my friend's pad and sleep on his floor. The reason nobody goes over there is because he lives fairly far away from all the action. Oh well, you take what you are given by EPIK, eh?

Saturday, we got some chamchi kimbap and headed into Itaewon wherein I proceeded to get propositioned by two old nasty prostitutes. Itaewon is the prominent place in Seoul for the military to hang out, as there is a base right there. Wherever there is a strong military presence, there are always hookers. A hill in Itaewon is nicknamed "Hooker Hill" for such obvious reasons. Now I certainly didn't invite this attention, it just happens when white Americans go to Itaewon. Anyway, I bought a couple of English books because I've been trying to read On The Road for the past four or five months and still haven't completed it. Curse you Kerouac! I blame Kerouac solely for getting me out of reading. I wanted to change that (maybe I'll give Kerouac another chance some day), so I bought Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Both I am particularly excited about, but since I've read Vonnegut before, I opted to start Stieg's book first. 100 pages into it, I'm into it.

Anyway, we stuck around Itaewon for a while to make a fashionable appearance at an acquaintance's birthday party before heading to Hongdae (where else would we go?) to catch a show. Moools (yes, the third O is intentional), the Japanese equivalent of Pavement, was playing that night and I desperately wanted to see live music. With two opening acts, live music is what I got. It was actually a good show. The lead singer and guitarist is a pretty amusing frontman.
Sunday after spending a night in the now world famous jimjilbang, we headed to Anguk, the central tourist district of Seoul. With nothing particular in mind, we just strolled the main drag (Insadong Street) and encountered some interesting things. First, an arcade with a bitchin' drum game that is the most Japanese thing I've ever seen. Second was a detail of bodyguards eyeing us suspiciously as we passed by. I was intrigued, so we sat down to see if hopefully David Bowie was going to pop out of the nearest sunglasses store. What happened instead was we were approached by two young boys who wanted to practice their English. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the day, as the one I talked to was 8 years old and had amazing English. Like, better than my sixth graders. His mom even took pictures of us on her polaroid. Yes, they still have polaroids in Korea, and they're actually kind of popular. I told you, the 80s are IN.So, one of my fifth grade lessons is titled "Where is Namdaemun?" It's designed to teach them simple directions. The dialogue goes something like this:

Foreigner Man: "Excuse me, where is Namdaemun?"
Nami: "Pardon?"
Foreigner Man: "Namdaemun, please."
Nami: "Oh, Namdaemun? Go straight and turn right at the bank. You can't miss it."
Foreigner Man: "Go straight and turn right at the bank?"
Nami: "That's right."
Foreigner Man: "Thank you!"
(After the wiley foreigner goes straight and turns right at the bank)
Foreigner Man: "Look! There's Namdaemun! Oh, wonderful!"

Ok, actually I think I just quoted that dialogue perfectly from memory. That comes with teaching the same lesson six times and repeating these sentences ad nauseam. And yes, the man was actually called "Foreigner Man" in the dialogue. Well, actually he was "waegook namja" but you get the point. Also, doesn't the dialogue sound so natural? Well, it sounded so natural to me that I wanted to see Namdaemun for myself. It's "Korea National Treasure #1" so I knew it would be awesome. Well, I tell you what. That dumb girl in the dialogue was wrong. I went straight and turned right at the bank and I got lost. Seoul is big! I hate Nami.

So here's what Namdaemun looks like normally.
Here's what Namdaemun looked like when I went to see it.
Turns out, some guy burned it down two years ago because he was pissed off for not getting paid in full for land he sold to some Korean developers. Sounds like he misplaced his hateful vengeance. Well, he's in prison now and we all get to wait until Korea rebuilds it some time soon, or maybe not, because they haven't done much with it since then.

I was so upset that I went straight to the station and went home. I'm just pulling your leg. I knew about the arson already. In truth, we went to the adjacent market to go shopping! I, as usual, did not buy any of the cool t-shirts I saw and then regretted it before going home. Here I sit waiting for tomorrow to come. Whoopie!