Dour, 電通-controlled, family-centric Belgian Neocolonialism, enthusiastically jaded observations, support for state-owned neoliberalist media and occasional rants from the twisted mind of a privileged middle-class expatriate atheist and とてもくだらないひと projecting some leftist ideals with my ridicule of Tucker Carlson (from The Blogs Formerly Known As Sponge Bear and Kaminoge 物語)
*see disclaimer below
We're back...minus one. After five weeks on R&R the wife and I have returned "home" to an emptier abode. If you've read the previous post, you will recall that we had spent about three weeks in the U.S., spending time at my sister's and dropping off our daughter at college. Mission sadly accomplished, Shu-E and I then delayed the onset of empty nest syndrome by spending nearly all of the past fortnight visiting South Korea. Below is the photo we sent to Amber just prior to take off from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on a Korean Air plane:
After nearly a twelve-hour flight, we finally landed at Incheon International Airport and made our way via train and subway into Seoul. It was evening when we finally checked into the Orakai Insadong Suites, following which we ventured out into the immediate neighborhood in search of something to eat:
What we eventually brought back to the room to consume:
It didn't take long switching channels to find some K-Pop on TV:
Our room. At the time of check-in we were upgraded to a suite, which was larger than some apartments I've rented. The room included a large kitchen and a washer/dryer. The presence of the latter eliminated any need to search for a laundromat later on in our journey (though we did make use of the laundry facilities at the hotel where we stayed in Busan):
The next morning (our first) we ventured out into the capital. This was my second time in Seoul, with the first coming more than a quarter-century ago. At that time I was living and working in Tōkyō 東京, and made the trip during the Golden Week vacation period, staying in the tourist black hole of Myeong-dong. It was a short jaunt across the Sea of Japan (oops, sorry, I mean the "East Sea"). With the exception of a day trip to the Korean Folk Village in nearby Suwon, I never left the bustling capital city, an oversight which I intended to rectify this time. For my wife this would be her first visit to the ROK:
Our first destination that morning was Bukchon, an area home to around 900 hanok, traditional Korean homes. Once there we dropped in at the Bukchon Traditional Culture Center, which itself was housed in a hanok:
After getting some background information at the center, we then spent the rest of the morning wandering around the village. Though I'd recently read the area has become a tourist magnet in recent years, this particular Wednesday morning was relatively quiet (still busy but not overrun with hordes of foreign travelers). An indication, however, of the village's popularity was the many signs asking visitors to keep their voices down:
Posing for photos outside the Simsimheon, a modern reconstruction erected using traditional methods on the site of two older hanok. Alas, it didn't appear to be open that morning (either that, or I needed to have made reservations in advance), but we would get to experience some semblance of hanok life later on during our trip:
Looking toward the N Seoul Tower, which I visited back in 1999:
After leaving the village it was time to find something to eat. Our first lunch in country ironically was a Korean take on that Japanese comfort favorite, donburi:
A common sight everywhere we went in South Korea (an indication of the well-trodden tourist path we were traveling on) was the shops renting out hanbok, traditional Korean clothing:
Seoul is home to four royal palaces, the most famous being the largest, Gyeongbokgung. I had visited this palace during that long-ago Golden Week holiday, at a time when the National Palace Museum of Korea was still housed in the former Government-General Building dating from when Korea was under Japanese rule (the building was subsequently demolished and replaced with a modern structure; by contrast, the former Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan currently serves as the Presidential Office Building, an example of the different historical attitudes relating to Japanese colonialism in South Korea and Taiwan). For this trip, however, we decided to instead check out the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Changdeokgung, arguably the most beautiful of the four palaces (at least according to my guidebook):
The highlight of this palace is the Secret Garden (Huwon), which can be seen only on a timed entry or with a guided tour. We opted for the former as there was a shorter wait:
Having a look around the rest of the palace grounds following the Huwon:
One of the later additions to the palace shows Western influences. Even though the Joseon Dynasty (Korea's last) was abolished in 1910 parts of the palace still served as a royal residence up until the end of the 1980's:
The main hall sits in a large plaza modeled after Beijing's Forbidden City, but the building is clearly Korean in design:
Markers indicated where officials lined up according by rank:
The interior of the main hall. Changdeokgung served as the main royal palace until the Gyeongbukgung was rebuilt in 1868:
Bridge ornamentation:
The day turned out to be a warm one. It was also the first of several days involving a lot of walking, which would take its toll on Shu-E's legs and feet. Somehow, despite all those thousands of steps, I still managed to return to Beijing 3.9 kilograms/8.6 pounds heavier:
After resting a bit back at the hotel, that evening we went out to what my guidebook described as Seoul's largest traditional market, Namdaemun. Which turned out to be hard to believe - at least the section we visited (using the suggested subway station and exit mentioned in the guide) was very quiet, devoid of any crowds, and hardly the bustling marketplace we were expecting. We still ended up having dinner there:
The atmosphere was much livelier back in Insadong, on the approach leading to our hotel:
We would explore a much more vibrant market the following day, so stay tuned for that report coming soon. In the meantime, enjoy some K-Pop:
"How did you get through this. Simply put, we dislike our
housing. On paper it fits but in reality it’s patched up so we have a roof and
they’re still working on it, sigh. It’s definitely impacting my headspace. It
sucks even more when your home is motel 5 in comparison to others in the pool
that we visit. I have the ick every time I enter my home yet have to keep a
smile because of the very small post size. Revamping the place would mean so
much out of pocket costs. How did you cope?...what helped or did you just go
back stateside lol."
The above comes from a recent post in a Facebook group for Foreign Service Officers and their families. When reading the above, keep in mind that our overseas housing is free in most localities (meaning no rent or utility bills), and that we tend to live in nicer accommodations than the majority of locals in our various host nations. One could make a valid argument in support of the poster based on compensation packages designed to make overseas work more attractive, but for this person their main concern appears to be the size of their house when compared to those of their colleagues. We were assigned abodes in Addis Ababa and Beijing 北京 that are smaller than the Jones' place, but I always try to keep in mind that the size is still adequate, and our homes in China, Lithuania and Ethiopia have been far roomier than our apartment in Taichung 台中. Hell, our present living room is larger than my first rabbit hutch of an apartment in Tōkyō 東京!
You may be asking yourself at this point why I chose to lead off this latest post with the above. A fair question. A fair answer would be venting due to work-related frustrations. As mentioned in my previous post, it's bidding time again, an unpleasant process that unfortunately has coincided with a long-planned R&R trip back to the U.S., where I'm currently ensconced at my sister's place in the Seattle suburbs. Until recently technical snafus had been making it impossible to submit any bids on a desired next position, but now that those have been resolved, I can see the competition I'm up against, and know that the chances of landing one of those jobs for my final tour are very, very slim. This means that my final State Department hurrah is likely to end up in a hardship post, or worse, watching my accumulated savings erode away due to the high cost of housing in the Washington, D.C. area.
And that last point is a serious concern because the main reason I'm on leave in the States is to see off our daughter as she begins college as a freshman in Oregon State University, home of the Beavers. Yes, my little girl has stepped out on her own, and I'm simultaneously excited for her, and heartbroken that she won't be at home when we return to Beijing, at least not until the end of the fall term. Amber and her mother spent almost a month staying with my sister preparing for the big move, and I joined them here a couple of weeks ago. The following photos are a brief overview of some of the things we've seen and/or been doing as the girl was getting ready to go off to school...
How we demonstrate our reverence for our most cherished national symbols - Lady Liberty's beacon shines for cash savings on car washes:
An outing to the Seattle Aquarium. Amber had visited a couple of times when she was small, but this would be our first time since the new Ocean Pavilion has been open:
Shu-E patiently waited for this photo op with a harbor seal:
Chinook salmon swimming against the current, symbolic of my standing in the State Department:
Shopping for fall fashions for college in the aquarium gift shop. The girl also purchased a pair of otter slippers to wear in the dorm:
Final thoughts on the aquarium: It isn't bad at all, but it's not worth the steep admission fee of almost $40 per person, especially having experienced more impressive aquariums in places like Sydney and Ōsaka 大阪. The U.S. can be an expensive tourist destination, something consular officers need to keep in mind when adjudicating visa applications.
A mandatory stop at Ivar's, a Seattle institution since 1938, following our visit to the aquarium. I had the cod fish and chips (with my daughter opting for the halibut), along with a bowl of clam chowder and a bottle of RC Cola, a childhood favorite:
Another mandatory stop for the three of us while in Seattle is Uwajimaya 宇和島屋, a locally renowned Asian supermarket, and its attached Kinokuniya Bookstore 紀伊國屋書店 branch. Before first going to Tōkyō in the late 1980's, I would visit the Kinokuniya in San Francisco's Japantown to do research in an age before the Internet and Google.
Alas, Seattle's Kinokuniya has declined in recent years. With each visit there seem to be fewer books on the shelves, especially those on history (mainly samurai 侍-themed tomes, an indication of what people think about these days when it comes to Japan, seemingly oblivious that bushidō武士道 a load of B.S.) and travel, and more on anime アニメ and manga 漫画 + crafts and stationery items. There's also an expanding selection of books in Chinese these days, though many are on Japanese subjects like anime. I was pleased to see this small corner devoted to Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shōhei Ohtani 大谷翔平:
Horror writer and manga artist Junji Itō 伊藤潤二 is a favorite of Amber's:
The supermarket is more reliable than the bookstore, especially since it underwent an extensive remodeling a few years ago. This time I was pleasantly surprised to find that old favorite of mine, Skál スコール:
With every happy discovery comes a disappointment. In this case it was "BeanFish", which claims to be a purveyor of "authentic" taiyaki たい焼き, but the American-style pancake batter tastes heavier than the Japanese variety, and absorbs too much of the custard filling (the below thumbs up was given before actually biting into the confection):
Chicken Katsu Loco Moco at Kona Kitchen, one of my sister's favorite local eateries. This loco moco tasted better than the preservation would suggest:
The history of the humble maple bar. A weakness of mine, when joining the State Department and moving to Virginia for orientation and training, I was surprised to learn maple bars were a west coast phenomenon. Now that I'm temporarily back in the Pacific side of the country, I've been (over)indulging on the sweet treats:
Since she's been here, Shu-E has formed a bond with Ellie, my nephew James' Corgi:
The Seattle Center Space Needle. Amber and I visited five years ago, but Seattle's most iconic landmark wasn't our destination this time:
Instead, with Karen leading the way, my daughter and I went to check out the Museum of Pop Culture (MOPOP), formerly known as the EMP Museum. Founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and initially meant as a tribute to Seattle native Jimi Hendrix, the museum has since expanded its vision to encompass trends in American popular culture, to which Seattle has been a major contributor. Visitors to MOPOP are greeted by a sculpture of local legend Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone. His death from a heroin overdose ended that band, but two of its surviving members went on to form Pearl Jam:
Another exhibit covered musicians who died young, including members of the so-called "27 Club":
Amber, a budding guitarist, was less than impressed with the small axe collection. If only she knew who Buddy Holly was and what he accomplished:
The exhibit I wanted to see was Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses, and it didn't disappoint. My appreciation of the band and its music dates back to the fall of 1991, when I purchased a copy of Nevermind while living in Tokyo. Though sometimes included at the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation based on the year I was born, I've never felt a kinship with the postwar kids (I have no memories of Woodstock, and the only time I ever saw hippies was on a YMCA summer camp field trip in the early 70's). Instead, I consider myself more of an elder statesperson for Generation X. Particularly in the early Nineties I was feeling resentful of baby boomers and their dominance of popular culture, and Nirvana's music spoke to those feelings.
The band was scheduled to play the legendary Club Citta in Kawasaki 川崎 in early 1992. My good friend Louis, however, convinced me to see Guns 'N' Roses at Tōkyō Dome 東京ドーム instead (money for concerts was tight at the time) because he needed a fourth person to fill out a double date with the infamous words "We'll see them the next time they come to Japan". I never forgave Louis, though like Kurt Cobain, he is sadly no longer with us:
An early T-shirt design inspired by Dante's Upper Hell. The iconic Smiley face shirt is popular with today's youth, but I have no desire to engage in gatekeeping with members of the young generation:
The green shirt worn by Cobain for the cover of Spin:
A selection of Krist Novoselic's favorite albums:
Listening to Album - Generic Flipper, one of my favorites back in the early 1980's. Novoselic played bass in the band 2006-9:
"She's a sex bomb, my baby, yeah!":
Infinite Worlds of Science Fictiondisplayed items from iconic sci-fi movies and TV shows. In the days before Netflix I would binge watch The X-Files on video when they would be released into the Japanese market (the series wasn't shown on Japanese TV at that time):
A toy Godzilla ゴジラ from 1964 that Amber thought was cute but far from menacing:
In the Sound Lab multimedia installation, visitors could try out their chops on various instruments. Here our daughter plays bass. She has an acoustic guitar back in Beijing, and wants to buy an electric model and amp in Corvallis (the Oregon city where her college is located), though space is at a premium in her dorm room (more on that later):
The original version of Dungeons & Dragons. I played a lot of D&D into the early hours of the morning in my friend Jeff's garage, a reflection of my not having a girlfriend in high school:
In the museum gift shop:
I picked up this Sub Pop hoodie. Modeling it is proof that I was uncool then, and even more uncooler now:
Lunch following the museum was at The 5 Point Cafe, another favorite of my sister:
Chili:
French Dip:
The food was good, but I came away feeling the cafe was being self-consciously "edgy", as opposed to a genuine dive. Competing sources of answers back at the Seattle Center:
Though we walked back from the restaurant underneath the tracks, this was the best shot I could get of the Seattle Center Monorail, a legacy of 1962 Seattle World's Fair:
What could be more American than taking in a ballgame? In this case it was the hometown Seattle Mariners vs. the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers at T-Mobile Park on Hispanic Heritage Day. On the way to the stadium from the Link station we passed by this large mural of Ken Griffey Jr. in action:
The view from our seats in the upper right field deck:
The start of the game:
With Karen, James, James' girlfriend Diana...:
...and Amber. Shu-E took a rain check on the festivities, choosing instead to continue bonding with the corgi:
During the later innings my daughter and I took a walk around the concourse:
Awaiting the final out in the top of the ninth inning:
The final score was 7-0 in favor of the M's, whose pitchers combined on a one-hitter in a much needed victory as Seattle chases a wild card spot (Wrap and box score; game highlights below):
We traveled to and from the game via the Link light rail train:
My sister has two cats, a pair of feline siblings. Nigel loves seeking affection; Squeak (below) is sometimes friendly only to suddenly hiss and swipe:
The Korean Wave has reached the shores of the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, Washington:
Amber drinking something called "Pink milk" at the Kin Dee Thai restaurant in Bothell, capping off a day in which she successfully passed her driving skills test on her first try:
The following day she went to the DMV to receive her temporary Washington state drivers license, and then it was off on the 4½-drive down Interstate 5 to Corvallis, Oregon and the start of her university matriculation. For lunch we stopped at Burger Claim, a burger joint in Grand Mound, Washington, where your famished scribe had the 6 ounce (170 grams) Original Claim Cheeseburger, with fries and a blueberry shake. 'Murica...:
Passing through Portland with Amber in the passenger seat taking photos:
We stopped in Wilsonville, Oregon at the Oregon Korean War Memorial, which was as good a place as any to change drivers, with our daughter driving the final 90-minute leg to Corvallis. Wilsonville turned out to have a sister city relationship with Kitakata 喜多方 in Japan's Fukushima Prefecture 福島県:
Me: "Do you want me to take your picture with General MacArthur?"
Amber: "Who?":
Our first dinner in Corvallis at the Mix Asian Bistro:
Our first breakfast the following morning came courtesy of Benny's Donuts:
Helping our daughter move her things into her dorm. She's part of a trio sharing what was meant to be a double, so hopefully they'll learn to live with each other very quickly:
Found it!:
Beaver motifs can be found everywhere on campus:
Mother and daughter in the Memorial Union. I jokingly advised Amber not to let Chinese students demand that OSU adhere to the One Child policy. At the same time I seriously recommended that she join any Taiwanese student groups on campus:
The football team recently lost to Oregon (their archrivals), but the baseball team has enjoyed greater success this century, playing at Gross Stadium at Coleman Field (1907), the oldest continuous ballpark in the U.S.:
Dad sports that Beaver pride (I'm paying for it so might as well...):
Corvallis sits in the middle of a rural area along the Willamette River but the Pacific Ocean is only an hour's drive away. So one afternoon we drove to Nye Beach in Newport. Conditions there were somewhat windy:
Some interesting candy flavors but in the end Amber and I opted for some more conservate ice cream:
In Mombetsu Sister City Park. Newport has a sister city relationship with Monbetsu 紋別, a small city in northeastern Hokkaidō 北海道, facing the Sea of Okhotsk:
At the Sea Lion Docks, which I visited years before with my parents (and got pulled over for speeding while exiting the bridge in the background, though I was let off with a warning). With Amber and Shu-E we once stayed a night on the other side of that bridge. It was a long night followed by a visit to an aquarium:
On another morning we drove 45 minutes from Corvallis to Marys Peak, sitting at 4097 feet/319 meters in elevation:
The views from the Summit Trail. It wasn't quite clear enough to see the ocean but they were still impressive:
The Cascades could be seen in the distance:
Back in town we took a walk around campus. So many pins indicating quite a few Taiwanese compatriots will be joining our daughter:
Passing by the baseball field again:
Adley Rutschman is currently the starting catcher for the Baltimore Orioles. Another Beaver doing well in MLB is Steven Kwan, the left fielder for the Cleveland Guardians:
Amber was more interested in YInMn Blue, an inorganic blue pigment discovered by a grad student at Oregon State:
Shrimp Red Curry Yakisoba and a Kumo beer for dinner at Block 15:
At Reser Stadium to see the Oregon State Beavers take on the visiting Purdue Boilermakers, and to introduce Amber to college football. Prior to this past Saturday the only American football games I'd ever attended were a preseason exhibition in Tokyo Dome in August 1989 between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers, and a college all-star game in Yokkaichi 四日市. That's right, I never attended a gridiron contest at my alma mater, even though the UC Davis Aggies were a Division 2 powerhouse at the time:
The final score was 38-21 in favor of the hosts as they recovered from the previous week's trouncing at the hands of the Ducks. Despite my best attempts at explaining the rules my daughter couldn't really grasp what was happening down on the field. It also didn't help that with all the timeouts and other breaks in the action, the game took almost 3½ hours. Many people say baseball is boring, but with the recent changes meant to speed things up, the game we saw in Seattle took less than 2½ hours to complete. Television made football (especially the NFL) the most popular sport in the nation, but baseball remains the better game to enjoy in person. Still, if Amber does attend another game, she said she would dress in orange and sit in the student section, which would probably be much more exciting compared to the upper level where we sat.
Fans were allowed onto the field after the game, which I thought was a nice touch:
Game highlights below:
Leaving the stadium I looked up to see the "Beaver Fans 1" sculpture, which came across as somewhat creepy in the late evening hour:
By comparison the Electric Field sculpture was far less eerier:
On our last full day in Corvallis, Amber drove us to the Peavy Arboretum, which is operated by Oregon State University:
A Douglas Fir, Oregon's state tree:
Our daughter could visit the arboretum later in the fall and send us some photos. As she's now custodian of our trusty Honda Accord (which has seen action in China, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia and Ethiopia, in addition to an extensive cross-country across the U.S.), she will need take the car out occasionally in order to keep the battery charged:
A final family photo. Afterward Shu-E returned to the hotel where we had been staying, while I walked my daughter to her dorm for a tearful farewell, with the tears all mine:
The walk back from campus took me through Central Park, where I looked up in the dark to notice the Ethiopian and Ukrainian flags. These represent Corvallis' two sister cities, Gondar and Uzhhorod:
The following day it was just the two of us as my wife and I left Corvallis to return to my sister's place. But not before stopping in Portland to meet Andrea, an old friend from my college days, for lunch at the Rose VL Deli:
Campus photos courtesy of our daughter, as she begins to settle in at her new home:
There wasn't much to do during her first week, so she used the time to explore the various clubs and organizations. One of those was the astronomy club, where she was able to observe Saturn and one of its moons (to the right of the planet) through a telescope from the roof of a building on campus. Hopefully, once classes start in earnest, she'll find the proper balance and not end up like Max Fischer in Rushmore:
The Pacific Northwest is notorious for its overcast conditions and rainy weather, but up until the 25th our time in Oregon and Washington had been blessed with warm, sunny climes. But on this day the weather returned to script. But it wasn't pouring, so Shu-E and I drove into Seattle to spend a few hours. After doing some shopping (again) at Uwajimaya and Kinokuniya, we ventured across town to visit the Lake View Cemetery, the final home of martial arts legend Bruce Lee and his son Brandon, both of whom died tragically young:
Though he was born in San Francisco and attained fame in Hong Kong, the elder Lee did spend time in Seattle, finishing high school there and going on to study at the University of Washington (dropping out in 1964) and opening his first martial arts school.
From the cemetery we drove to Gas Works Park, established on the site of a former gasification plant and with nice views of the Seattle skyline across Lake Union:
Another wonderful meetup with old friends from uni, in this case Rob and Lisa (taken outside the Epulo Bistro in Edmonds):
And so now we're officially empty nesters. We've been speaking with our offspring every evening since leaving Corvallis, but that will no doubt be scaled back considerably once we're back in China. It's been quite a journey watching her progress from a young girl watching Dora the Explorer and playing Minecraft to a young adult who will major in chemistry at the region's largest research institution. As a father, there are times I wish she could forever remain a cheerful and inquisitive little girl, but as a father I'm also very proud of a young woman laying out a path for herself to follow. I would be a right bastard to deny her the opportunities that lay ahead.
Even with having to separate from our only child, it's been great spending time again with my sister here in the greater Seattle area. For Shu-E and I, the bidding turmoil and resultant uncertainty awaits our return to Beijing, but not before we spend a bit of time getting away from reality in South Korea.
