8/6/2019 Philly Inquirer: Sizzling Seoul, 2nd page

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more than its fair share of surpris-es.

If New York is the Big Apple, andJakarta the Big Durian, then Seoulmay appropriately be called the BigKimchi Pot. Like the earthenwarears that families bury in the eartho ferment Korea’s ubiquitous pick-ed cabbage mixture, the city is, fig-ratively speaking, still mostly un-erground.

Don’t let the low profile fool you,owever: Like those clay urns,

Seoul has some serious magic per-olating just beneath the surface.

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It’s late Friday night a week latern Hongdae, the bohemian neigh-

b or hood surr oun din g c entr alSeoul’s Hongik University, and thestreets are awash with neon andpounding music. Twentysomethingstudents and expats drift in and outof a dense network of bars andclubs, and in the concrete play-ground at Hongik Park, a group of street performers launch into along-jam version of Bob Marley’s“No Woman No Cry.” From the roof-top of dark, funky Bar Da, a famous

artists’ hangout a short distanceaway, I sit and watch the crowdspouring through the nighttimestreets.

“You know, when I first heard thenew tourism slogan, I laughed,”says my guide, Myeong-Hee Jeong,a sixth-generation Seoulite. “Ithought, ‘Dynamic Korea,’ what isthat? But now, more and more, Ithink that it makes sense — youcome to Hongdae at midnight, and

ou can see it everywhere, this kindf energy.”Indeed, from this vantage, few

words would seem more apt.I follow Jeong back down to the

street, past crowds in vinyl tentbars quaffing shots of  soju, the lo-

al rice liquor. All around us, mass-

s are flowing into clubs such asoise Basement, M2, and FF, or

ating barbecue from streetsidebraziers set in low metal tables.

The night wears on in an alcoholaze into the small hours — people

stumbling out of karaoke parlorscalled norebang ) and snackingrom countless open-air food stallsining the avenue. Even at 4 a.m.,he streets never seem to empty.

It may be that Seoul really is theity that never sleeps. But even in a

etropolis whose famously over-

driven work ethic is matched onlyby its ferocious entertainment cul-ture, there’s still more than ampleopportunity to experience a softerside of things.

Take the jjimjilbang . Korea inher-ited the tradition of these publicbaths from the Japanese duringtheir occupation in the first half of the 20th century. The countrygained its independence in 1945,with the end of World War II, but

the bathhouse tradition stuck. To-day, there are hundreds of theseinexpensive, sex-segregated spasscattered throughout the city,where friends, couples, and evenfamilies take a well-deserved breakfrom the city’s relentless pali-pali(hurry-hurry) culture.

“Yay! Jjimjilbang!” chirps Hye-Jin Lee, 26, in the lobby of SiloamSpa. Studying for her real estatelicense, she keeps an unforgivingschedule but finds time to visit thebaths regularly. “I love it here. …the hot water, I feel like I’m tea! Nomatter what, I soak in the baths,and my stress just goes away.”

  At just 9,000 won (about $8) foran all-day pass, the spa is arguably

one of the world’s most affordableluxuries, an example of the kind of unique and unexpected find thatmakes the city so beguiling. It’s aplace to bathe, relax, read, or justtake a nap on the deliciously heated

ondol floors of the common loung-es.

Some Westerners may be hesi-tant to go the full monty with aroom full of strangers, but theyneedn’t be. Downstairs in the blue-tiled men’s bath, I’m effectively in-visible as I ease myself into the109-degree hot pool, fragrant withthe herby scent of mugwort, a signincongruously touting its healingproperties for “a variety of gyneco-

logical diseases.”  After a few minutes, I’m com-

pletely steamed, and I pad over tothe cold pool to plunge headlonginto the icy water, instantly releas-ing a euphoric rush of endorphinsthat expands through my body as Isit immersed to my neck. I skip thevigorous ministrations of the mas-sage staff in the “Korean Buff” cor-ner, scouring spa-goers raw withnubbly green mittens. Instead, Ichoose the salt sauna, scrubbingmyself shiny and smooth in theheat with stinging handfuls of coarse salt.

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Ninety minutes later, I emergeinto the twilight of the city, as

clean, and relaxed, as I’ve everbeen. The fabulous ChangdeokgungPalace, a UNESCO World HeritageSite, waits just a short taxi rideaway, but as visitors quickly discov-er, there’s much more to the city

than big-ticket attractions.Instead, I hop a train on the fan-

tastically cheap and efficient sub-way system to the affluent Gang-nam district south of the Han Riv-er, to grab an espresso in the city’snewest “it” neighborhood.

Coffee Smith cafe on the tree-lined street of Garosu-gil is the pic-ture of chic — an open, industrialfloor plan with curves of gray con-crete and distressed wood. It’s thekind of place beautiful people inSeoul go to see and be seen: womenwith perfect cheekbones and knee-high leather boots over tights andshort skirts; men in $500 suede jackets.

Still, the fascinating thing is howdifferent it feels from an upscaleneighborhood such as New York’sChelsea.

“If you want to see the here-and-now changing of modern Seoul, thisis definitely the epicenter of it,”writer and teacher Glenn Pihlaksays as he sips a cup of dark roast.“It’s got this refined European aes-thetic that’s not just the conspicu-ous consumption you see else-where in the city, and all the bou-tique shopping and dining you’d ex-pect. But the cool thing about it isthat it’s still Seoul. It’s so new itdoesn’t belong to anyone yet; itstays hip without being exclusive.”

We walk into the pre-spring air of late February, where, in the warm

light of boutiques and wine barssplashing onto the sidewalk, thetrees — like the city as a whole —seem on the verge of blooming.

“What people don’t understand isthat Seoul is just a huge mosaic,”Pihlak says as we walk. “It’s notlike Paris or New York, wherethere’s a list of sights you have tosee or you haven’t really seen thecity.

“Here, you can go out dancinguntil 6 a.m. every night and then hitthe little neighborhood next to your

hotel for amazing noodles right af-ter the subway opens,” he adds. “Oryou can spend every day in the mar-kets, or shopping in the luxurystores of Gangnam, or a million oth-er things, and you haven’t seen thecity any less than someone who juststicks to the itinerary in their guide-book.

“It’s a city that can be done in somany ways, a place that reallyhasn’t been mapped out.”

SEOUL from N1

By Matthew CromptonFOR THE INQUIRER

S EOUL, S outh K or ea — T hemorning after the South Koreannavy ship Cheonan was sunk in

arch 2010, I awoke to a column of army soldiers in camouflage battledress climbing my hill in north-cen-tral Seoul, with heavy machineguns and entrenching tools in tow.

The sinking of the Cheonan, wide-ly attributed to a North Korean tor-pedo (a finding North Korea de-nies), killed 46 sailors and put thecountry into a state of high alert,and the pre-election rhetoric of South Korean president Lee Myung-bak’s conservative-party govern-

ent toward the North was grimnd unforgiving.“We had been forgetting the reali-

y that this country faces the mostbelligerent regime in the world,” hesaid.

That morning, the streets of 

Seoul — just 30 miles south of Pan-munjom and the DemilitarizedZone — were unusually full of jeepsand transports bearing soldiers. And on the subway, the same topicwas on everyone’s lips: “What to doabout North Korea?”

Still, the striking thing about thatday and about the weeks that fol-lowed, which were my first experi-ence with the periodic breakdownsin relations between the Koreas,was how completely ordinary life inthe capital remained.

Living in America and hearing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Ihad imagined air-raid sirens and apopulation fleeing to bunkers. In-stead, I saw people calmly goingabout their daily lives: a nationheading to work and going shop-ping, children attending school,and businessmen sharing drinks ina karaoke bar at day’s end.

My South Korean friends — all of 

the younger generation that hadgrown up in an age of prosperity —explained that North Korea is aproblem, not an enemy, that talk of war benefits no one, and that it is

misguided to blame the North Kore-an people for the actions of theirgovernment.

Someday, the situation will im-prove and perhaps the two Koreas

will be unified, they hope, but inthe meantime they are resigned toliving next door to the world’s big-gest problem child — a starving na-tion run by a bellicose monomaniac— and bearing patiently and with-out undue alarm that nation’s des-perate cries for attention.

In the streets of Itaewon, Seoul’stourist quarter, travelers browsedfor knickknacks, and tailors offeredfi tti ngs for ha ndmade suits.Throughout the city, I did not see asingle gas mask.

The division at the heart of theKorean Peninsula was still a rawone, and among the older resi-dents, who remembered the Kore-an War and the devastation andmisery that followed, there wereangry words for a North Koreathat simply could not keep thepeace.

Still, what I saw of Seoul that daywas the heart of what it means tolive here. It is a city with its ownunique set of problems, even anxi-eties, but it’s hardly a city undersiege.

City of Seoul sizzles

 American, Asiana, Continental,Delta, United, and US Airwaysfly to Seoul from Philadelphiawith one stop. The lowestrecent round-trip fare wasabout $1,643.

More information

For information about Seouland the Republic of Korea(South Korea), go to VisitKorea, the official websiteof the Korea TourismOrganization(http://english.visitkorea.or.kr).

The Noryangjin fish market, where one can really sink his teeth into Seoul.The facility houses more than 700 stalls, along with seafood restaurants.

S. Koreans take troublesome North in stridevisitor envisions air raids, fleeing; instead,

citizens calmly go on, hope for reunification.

MATTHEW CROMPTON

 At the DMZ, a South Korean guard looks across to the North. The borderruns through the middle of the blue United Nations huts.

Seoul Searching 

NORTH

KOREA

S O U T H

K O R E A 

Seoul

CHINA

Pacific

OceanYellow 

Sea

SOURCE: ESRI Associated Press

MILES

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Demilitarized

Zone

MATTHEW CROMPTON

A shopkeeper looks through pottery displayed in his store window in Insadong-gil, Seoul.

High-rise apartment towers in the Yongsan district of central Seoul.

N6 www.philly.com THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Sunday, June 5, 2011