KYOTO & SEOUL

In 2015 my son Sam was working in Seoul teaching English to Korean children and it was just the excuse my daughter and I needed to go over and see him. As he was going to be working while we were there, we decided to sandwich two weekends in the city with a trip to Kyoto in between. A tale of two very different cities: one urbane, cool, modern; the other ancient, traditional and very beautiful. It was my first time in the Far East and I would have been helpless without Sam, who had been in Seoul long enough to speak some of the language and know where and what to eat, and Emily, who had previously been to Japan and knew a lot about the culture and a bit of the language.

We flew to Korea with Finnair, stopping in Helsinki where we landed in a wild snowstorm (the undercarriage camera gave a terrifying view). Helsinki airport, with its wooden furniture and birdsong in the lavs, provided an oasis of natural calm while we waited. A comfortable flight took us to Seoul where Sam was waiting with already purchased Korean equivalent oyster cards. We stayed in Hongdae, the university area, in a cramped little hostel down a back street, but it had everything we needed.

After a patchy, timezone-disorientated sleep, we set off for breakfast and we ended up having two. Odeng-guk is fish cake soup made of a fish paste mixed with flour, shaped and served with a broth. It was tasty but not filling so we had another breakfast nearby in a café. The only people in there were few old men sitting around but nobody apparently eating and it wasn’t promising, but Sam amazed me by ordering food in Korean and a sweet old lady disappeared in the kitchen and came back with jjamppong (seafood broth) and haemul pajeon (seafood omelette).

I had never seen anything like the Noryangjin fish market. There were hundreds of stalls lined up selling every conceivable type of fish or shellfish. Little old ladies opened their shopping bags while pink-aproned women tipped in huge living crabs. One thing that was noticeable was the absence of any kind of bad smell – here everything was fresh out of the sea. I would have loved some crab but I don’t think our little hostel was equipped to cook one.

The next day, after a couple of strange hours spent at the cat café, we flew to Osaka with the fantastic JAL and, even though the flight was only an hour, we got a meal, a choice of films (I watched half of one on the way over and the rest on the way back), and a drawstring bag with goodies in. Plus an extremely friendly service. Getting through customs at Osaka wasn’t quite as pleasing – we queued for 1.5hrs but it gave me a chance to go to the loo and experience one with a control panel that allows you to play music, warm the seat or even get a massage. Welcome to Japan!

We took the train from Osaka to Kyoto. When the train pulled into the station and the passengers had disembarked, all the doors were locked so that the stewards could clean the carriages. A press of a switch somewhere also meant all the seats automatically revolved to be forward facing. Meanwhile there were marks on the platform by each door where everyone queued patiently while this happened. If the UK government insists on selling train network franchises to foreign companies, could they sell Southern to Japanese Rail?

We arrived to a dark Kyoto and had a slightly stressful experience getting a taxi to our ryokan as I scrabbled around to find the address written in Japanese. I know I was only here a few days but I wish I had learned some more words and been a bit more organised linguistically. The local people do not all speak English for my convenience and many of the signs are written in Japanese characters.

The ryokan was the Q-beh hostel in Gion – the geisha area of Kyoto. It was basic but comfortable. We had to wear special slippers and our room was called ‘Tanuki’ which is a Japanese raccoon. The room had painted screen doors, tatami flooring, roll-up beds and a low table. Shower rooms and the kitchen were shared. It was clean, comfortable and very affordable.

Despite a bit of a cold, we took a train out of the city to visit the Fushimi Inari-Taisha shrine dedicated to the popular Shinto kami (deity) Inari, god of rice, cereals and foxes. It was a colder day with the odd flurry of snow, but there were still crowds. The main shrine is at the base of the Inari mountain and there are walks that take you up to the top passing through the most striking, and famous, feature: the 10000+ torii gates. At ground level these are numerous and close together to create tunnels, but, like the crowds of people, are fewer as you get to the top. We walked all the way up, stopping at smaller shrines and little kiosks selling matcha tea and snacks like hard-boiled eggs.

Once back down, we treated ourselves to tokiyaki – battered balls of octopus meat. I was fascinated watching them pour the batter then turn them with chopsticks to create the ball shape.

After a few nights at the ryokan, we transferred to a traditional Japanese two storey ‘machiya’ house – like an airbnb but much cooler, It was over 90 years old and full of traditional features including a fabulous cypress wood bathtub which you could almost swim in. It was like living in an Ozu film for a few days. I felt like I should be quietly drinking tea while making plans to marry my daughter off.

One day we went to Arashayima. We first walked through the bamboo grove which is spectacular, but not as long as I had thought it would be, and it’s very busy. The sound of the wind blowing through the bamboos is lovely though.

We went up to Okochi Sanso house that once belonged to Denjiro Okochi, a well-known film star. They have a tea house where we were given free matcha tea and a piece of cake. Afterwards we looked around the beautiful gardens – the moss is a mad yellow colour.

It’s a beautiful area to walk around with mountains on one side and views of the city on the other. I particularly liked the look of the tiny Daihikaku Senkoji temple nestled on the mountainside and wished we had walked up there. We stopped for lunch at a food stall to have nikuman pork dumplings.

My favourite place was Gio-ji temple. Once a nunnery, it consists of a small garden and a single building. There is a little stream trickling through the garden. The most stunning part of it is the moss which is such a vivid green. I found this garden so serene. I wish I could have a moss garden at home.

We flew back to Seoul with JAL again and I was very touched to watched the ground crew line up and bow to the plane as it was pulling away from the gate.

We took the subway to north Seoul and walked to Changdeokgung Palace which had been home to the Joseon dynasty, the last one of Korea. It has vast colonnaded spaces and lots of decorative details particularly on the roofs. We were there on ‘White Day’ in March. On Valentine’s Day, the women give the men presents, on White Day the men give presents back. There were lots of couples walking around hand in hand with bags of sweets.

Afterwards, we went to the very attractive Bukchon Hanok Village where many traditional Korean ‘hanok’ houses have been restored. Again, I loved the roofs.

Lunch was at the BooksCooks café in Jongno-gu – an odd combination of English afternoon tea, Georgian food and traditional Korean. We had bulgogi bibimbap which is a rice bowl with shredded barbecued beef (plus the ubiquitous broth). Below is Yeonipbap – sticky rice, nuts and beans wrapped in a lotus leaf, plus kimchi, pickled radish, cucumber, fried anchovy and broth.

We treated ourselves to one of the best ice cream lollies ever – Melona.

A couple of days later we flew back the way we had came via Helsinki. I loved the contrast of the two cities. We did a lot in the short time we were there, but obviously there is a lot more to see in both countries.