ROK #4: Traditional music

Drums and gongs with the “samul nori” tempo, dominate the Korean traditional music, which we got several chances to experience.
The music is widely used as entertainment, in Buddhism and traditionally in the farmer villages to ensure a good harvest.

This is an example from the taekwon-do demonstration:

The fierce looking women demonstrated an amazing rhythm:



This drum really takes a beating at the guard change ceremony at the Gyeongbokgung palace., and judged from looking at the little boy seen behind the drummer, the sound is quite loud:

One evening we went to see the performance “Nanta”, or “Cookin’” as the play is called when they perform in Western countries. Nanta takes all the traditional rhythms and make a breathtaking show that takes place in a kitchen, where pots, pans and everything else in the kitchen is used to make the music. It was quite entertaining - but the Korean music is best enjoyed made with a drum than with kitchen knifes, pots and huge jars of Kimchi.

ROK #3: Religion in Korea

Buddism takes up an important part of the Korean culture. There are more than 9000 temples and 11 million followers.

In Seoul we found a whole road dedicated to Buddhism where colourful lotus lanterns, monk clothes, prayer beads, Buddhist writings, drums, incenses, music for meditation and so one is well represented. It is a kind of weird browsing through these shops, but in a fun way.

On this road is also located one of the few temples in Korea that is not located in the tranquil mountains. This temple, the Jogyesa Temple, is the centre of Zen Buddhism in Korea.

The main temple building, is about 500 years old and colourful decorated. The lotus flower is one of the most common used symbols in Buddism as it stands for awakening to the spiritual reality of life.

Many people prayed and meditated in front of the great Buddha statues while we were there. We chatted with a friendly Korean guy who told us that he had learned about the Danes, Grundtvig and Dalgas at school, and we talked to one of the people working at the temple, about the upcoming lotus lantern festival and the temple stays. Both could be cool to take part of one day.

Our final stop down the road of Buddhism for now was at the restaurant Sanchon. A former monk started this restaurant which serves vegetarian food mostly made of ingredients from the mountains and inspired by the temple life. Temple cuisine emphasis on fresh vegetables and herbs reflects a tradition of Korean cooking of closeness to the nature. That evening we had more that 20 different dishes ranging from the Korean traditional pickled cabbage to different roots and mushrooms.


We also tasted the home brewed wine, which were quite different than any wine we have ever tried. So were the colour and the decanter.





Religion is not really taking up a big part of our lives – but after a couple of days in Seoul, you cannot help feeling a bit more spiritual.

ROK #2: At the border of surrealism: DMZ

The demilitarized zone (DMZ) on the border between North Korea (The Democratic Republic of North Korea) and South Korea or “ROK” among friends (The Republic of Korea) is one of the most surrealistic places we have ever experienced.

The initial briefing in the Joint Security Area (JSA), started of with us all signing a document (Click on the photo to enlarge).

The first line of the document says: "The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action". Yes, this is really serious business. The briefing also included the message that "get down" really does mean GET DOWN! The end slide supporting the briefing said "In front of them all" and we were kindly asked to give our applause to the presenter - an American lieutenant.

Our tour entertainer (another lieutenant) has allegedly used this plate the previous week to kill a poisonous and deadly tiger snake, which he convinced fellow soldiers not to grab with their bare hands…



Imagine two contradicting ideologies 'communism' and 'capitalism' facing each other with thousands of soldiers along the border. The North Korean soldiers are ordered to shoot any defectors who try to cross the border to the south. The opposite situation is not considered a risk in ROK. However, ROK and the Americans take the risk from the North extremely seriously, with good reason apparently. In 1984, a defector made it across the border to the south, resulting in four casualties when 20-30 North Korean soldiers crossed the border to chase down the defector. As a result of this, the Americans and ROK soldiers has a unit which is ready for battle at the border in less than 60 seconds if the alarms sounds.

All the above is only information and intangible facts. The tangible realities are much more wierd and visible. One of the visible symbols of the absurdness in this conflict is the flags on either side of the border. South Korea demonstrated their potency in the 1980s by building a 98.4-meter flagpole, only to be surpassed by North Korea with the tallest flagpole in the World, with 160-meter and a ½-ton flag, which by the way is usually too heavy to be carried by the wind.

Another fact is the attitude of the soldiers. Equally the North Koreans, the Americans and the ROK soldiers all act as if they were hired to do a Broadway tragicomic play or belong to another solar sytem. The North Koreans tries to intimidate you, by giving you the evil look or by focusing their binoculars at you (uuuh scary!). The attitude of the American In-front-of-them-all-soldiers one second give an impression that World War Three could happen at any moment just to perform as stand-up comedians a second later. The stone-cold, hard-core, taekwon-do black-belt, Ray-Ban wearing ROK soldiers ooze toughness enough to impress anybody, even though they wear rattles on the legs to sound as if they are ten people marching instead of just one.

American soldier performing with two ROK soldiers guarding in the background.

The toughest ROK soldier ever! A requirement for this post is the black belt in taekwon-do.

While the American is performing and the tough ROK soldiers are garding, the North Korean soldiers are standing on the other side of the border which is only separated by the building seen on the pictures above. One of these North Koreans has apparently found a big interest in Henrik and his 12X zoom camera.


Before going to Korea, we had an idea that North Korea was not one of the places were we would set our feet, but on the following picture, Henrik is in fact standing on the North Korean side of the border. The grim looking ROK soldier is there to protect Henrik, if the North Korean soldiers should decide to enter the building from the door behind, but he is also there to prevent Henrik or one of the other tourist to defect to the North...

To visit the border (JSA), ROK inhabitants must prove that they do not have any relations to North Korea for at least four generations and inhabitants from communist countries are not given access. These facts and our own observations gave us an impression that this conflict is still very tense and troublesome.
Next stop was the exhibition five kilometers from the border/JSA, where in contrast to the JSA area, everybody including ROK inhabitants, are allowed to enter. We were quite taken by surprise when we watched a video there, that showed a peaceful and almost paradise-like DMZ, which is a complete contrast to the impression left on us an hour earlier at the JSA.
From our point of view, the propaganda is equally extreme in the South as in the North. Where is the logic in this truly unique situation?

The ROK soldier is of cause only showing one eye and a small part of his body in case the enemy starts shooting.

ROK #1: Hi Seoul 2007

Here starts our update from our 8 days trip to South Korea during Golden Week.
We thought we would spend a few days in the big city(Seoul) and then head for the mountains, the temples and the coast. Instead we ended up staying in Seoul the whole week, - so much for our longing for backpacker-days. (We did change hotel bed four times in eight days though, which must fully legalise our backpacks and hiking boots...).

The thing is, that as we arrived in Seoul, the 'Hi Seoul 2007' festival opened, with plenty of shows and activities, showing Koreas ancient culture and traditions to the public. So when everything is served on a silverplate - why chase it across the country?
The festival's opening ceremony took place close to Seouls 63-floor building, from where the night-view was quite impressive.A lighted boat parade toured the river, a stage was set up, air ballons was part of the decoration and a food fair offered traditional Korean food, where we managed to avoid silk worms and dog meat, but had a go for the chicken feet in chili sauce. Our Japanese teacher had warned us that Korean food tend to be very spicy, but we had no idea food could be THIS spicy. We had to give up eating it after an unsuccessful attempt to dim the fire with cold beer. A Korean couple had a good laugh when they saw the hardly touched plate.

A structure decorated with colourful ribbons on which thousands of residents in Seoul had written their wishes left a beautiful impression. When the bands started off at the stage, the crowds gathered. Korean rock and pop was great fun - indead when it included a friendly dance with a korean salary man, but most impressive was the drum-group. The beat are said to derive from the rhythms of the work in the fields.
Here is a clip from the show,- we filmed it with the camera, so the quality is not top tuned... we hope it leaves a good impression anyway:Heading away from the crowds a Korean Tv station made a brief interview with Barbara. Her 5 seconds of fame.
The low temperature had taken us with surprise, so we missed the grand opening fireworks. Nevertheless our first day in Seoul had been very positive and left us with an impression of a down to earth modern capital with friendly helpful residents and the most tasteful doughnuts on earth.

Golden Week

Many national holidays take place during the upcoming week. April the 29th is the Showa Day - the birthday of a former emperor. May the 3rd is the Constitution Day. May the 4th is Greenery Day and dedicated to the environment and nature, and finally May the 5th is Childrens Day where the Boys Festival is celebrated with samurai dolls and carp streamers.

So many holidays in a row, means many people go to the movies which makes this period very prosperous for movie theaters, hence the week is known as Golden Week.

Golden Week is one of Japans three busiest holiday seasons, and we too will use the many days off on travelling. We have booked flight tickets to South Korea, where we plan to re-live our days as backpackers, with nothing planned and booked pre-hand, though only for a short period.

Not blending in

Today I(b) spent a whole afternoon out. It went okey, I thought I blended in, I relaxed and well, of cause some people stare, but that has been the case for more than three years now, so it is sort of normal.

I enter our building and head for the elevator. When the elevator arrives, a Japanese woman and her mabye 3 years old daughter show up as well. I enter the elevator and holds the door for them. The woman enters, but the little girl on the other hand refuses to do so. Instead the little girl starts to scream and cry and looks frightened at the 1,80 meter tall gaijin girl. NO WAY she wants to ride an elevator with that freak. In the end the mother had no other choice than to demand the girl to enter.

During the whole ride on the elevator the woman kept apologizing and giggled while she covered her mouth with her hand (Japanese tend to do this when they are embarressed). The child never stopped crying from her hide out behind her mothers leg.

It will probably take a day or two before I again believe that I can totally blend in here...

Robots in Toyota City and castle in Nagoya

Due to a business trip to Nagoya, I(h) got a chance to see one of Japans many castles. As most of the major castles in Japan, the original was destroyed during World War II. The reconstuction was still impressive though:


The biggest impression left in Nagoya was not the castle though, but a visit to the Toyota factories in Toyota City (yep, Toyota has a city named after them!). The visit left a feeling of science fiction and reality is merging.
The high technology factories was equipped with a conveyer belt in the assembly hall, that did not just assemble one type of car, but several types of cars following each other. This was done with practically no parts on the line to assemble the car with. Toyota must have the most efficient warehouse management system in the World! No wonder why the entire car industry and practically all other industries (including the pharmaceutical industry) are copying the production principles of Toyota.

The science fiction and futuristic ideas of Toyota was presented at an exhibition at the Head Quarter, which included a trumphet playing robot. Of cause.

Toyota also presented the scooter (i-unit) of the future:

This is Henriks car, seen in another perspective:

Too Japanese

Today two western guys passed me(b) on the pedestrian walk, which have only happend one time before, since we arrived here.

The guys greeted me, and as a reflex I greeted them back, the Japanese way: I bowed my head for them and then looked down.

Why???

Aizuwakamatsu in bloom

Aizuwakamatsu used to house a great Samurai klan which is hard not to notice wandering around the historical sights. We went there to admire the castle and the many blooming cherry trees:


The original castle dates back to 1384, but it has been redesigned and rebuilt various times and the current version is from 1965 - an replica of the castle tower as it looked before it was demolished by the Meji gouvernment in 1874.

Aizuwakamatsu is also known for the tragic tale of 20 young samurai warriors whom during a battle against the Meji gouvernment, had fled to a hill top. From the hill top the young samurais thought they saw the castle on fire and feared everything was lost to the enemy, so they decided to commit ritiual suicide. One boy survied though, and could tell the story.
Eventhough our Japanese is not that good, watching this theater play, we had no doubt about the story:


In reality it was the forest that was in fire and not the castle, which made the suicide even more tragic. The graves of the 19 boys can still be found on the top of the hill.

Another pic from the play:



Hongo
Sunday we went to Hongo, which is a small village just outside Aizuwakamatsu. The place is famous for its pottery that dates back to the epoca of samurais and feudal lords. Hongo first became a pottery williage 400 years ago, when tiles to build the castle was demanded made there.

It is possible to visit the many pottery workshops today, there is only one though, Munakata, that handles the entire potterymaking process in a strictly traditional manner. When we arrived at his workshop we were greeted by a nice woman who invited us in and after a few minutes asked us to take a seat on a cusion. Here she served salted cucumbers and fresh made tea. Afterwards we took another look in the shop and ended buying a set of teacups. When we paid, she invited us to take a seat again, so that she could serve us coffee while she packed the goods for us.
Buying things tend to be a very slow, but thorough and respectful matter here in Japan.

Anyone have a coin?

On our way to Aizuwakamatsu, we stopped for lunch at a Japanese BBQ-place. We received a big plate each with pieces of raw meat and the grill in the centre of the table was lit.
As we sat there enjoying the food adventure, Henrik suddenly became serious and asked for the camera. He took a picture of a sign on a building on the other side of the parking lot. Here is the picture:

:-)

Kawashigashi town - Aizumura

Saturday morning on our way to Aizuwakamatsu, we noticed a huge statue reminding us of Virgin Mary. We decided to stop and take a look.
Soon we found ourselves inside the most beautiful Japanese park, with full blooming cherry trees, various types of plants, bushes and trees, children feeding carps, a small shrine, a 14 meter reclining statue of Buddha and many great picnic spots. The park was busteling with families, school classes and elderly couple trying to find a place for o hanami in the shadow of the cherry trees. We felt the same energy we used to sense in some of the parks in Copenhagen. Nice!


The 57 meter tall statue, pictures 'Jibo Kannon'. 'Jibo' means 'Loving Mother' and 'Kannon' is the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy.
The reason why she resemble Virgin Mary could be found in the fact that Christianity was banned during the Edo era, so Christian people disquised Virgin Mary in many Jibo Kannon.

The name of the park was Aizu-mura, which means the Aizu village. We will soon return to this place for a whole day picnic/reading in the sun. Here are some more shots:

The Japanese children were well represented in the park, looking cute in their uniforms, or feeding carps.
Jibo Kannon smelling the Cherry blossoms:
Sleeping Beauty. This statue is a replica of one on Sri Lanka from the mid 12th century:

Culture awareness, part 1

This friday we received a whole day of training in the Japanese culture.
We were surprised of how many things we have already picked up unconsciously, nevertheless there is plenty of room for improvement. From now on we will in particularly focus on loosing our Danish habit of constant eyecontact with whomever we speak to, we will put an effort into understanding the codeks around the hieracy, we will train our patience and hopefully therefore stop interupting other people speaking and we will bow the best we have learnt!

Ganbatte Kudasai!

Cherry Blossom

This morning we drove to Miharu Takizakura 6.30 a.m.
Miharu Takizakura is a more than 1000 years old weeping cherry tree and on the top three list over great cherry trees in Japan. In 1922 it was declared a national treasure. (Notice how small the man is, in the left of the picture).
We arrived at the site around 7 o'clock, assuming we would have the place pretty much to ourselves, so we were truely supprised when we found various food stalls and well organized parking facilities.

The sky was clear blue and the tree was stunning with its 19 meters height and 22 meters wide, thus perfect for photos, which the line of Japanese photocentrics beautifully demonstrated.

Water as a mean of relaxation or as an energy source?

I had a conversation the other day, with a Japanese woman. She said she soaked in the bathtub, every day in the evening as it is so relaxing. She never takes a bath nor shower in the morning.

I said, that many people in Denmark, me included, take a shower every morning - as it gives a refreshing kick start to the day. It makes it easier to wake up.

What a contradiction. To use the purification ritual as a mean for waking up or for slowing down.

Hot toilets

Last weekend we went to the showroom of the biggest toilet producent in Japan, Toto, and tried their state-of-the-art toilets. We had great fun pushing the different buttons on the remote control for the toilet. We did not go on fire though: Pas på - Toilettet brænder!
& Japanske toiletter bryder i brand

Polite election campaign?

In the end of this month the gouvenor election will take place in our prefecture. That shouldn't really effect us in anyway, being gaijins, but yet the election campaign is taking up a big part in our life at the moment.
Our appartment is located on the main street in the city, and the walls are apparently thin, as we all day long can hear the 'onegaishimasu' yelled in the speakers on the passing cars, politly asking the people to vote for their candidate. One sunday morning we woke up 7 o'clock because of this!


The picture shows the election campain. The politician in suit is speaking to a fairly small crowd, while his yellow dressed crew is standing next to the truck greeting and bowing to every single car or bicycle that pass by.

Yet another Chigiri-e

The day's subject was the most difficult so far: To make a landscape. If you think it turned out well, it is because the teacher(sensei) helped generously!

In honor of the blooming cherry trees, sensei served cherry blossom tea for us. 15 years ago, she herself had picked many blooming cherry blossoms. Then she had dried them and salted them.

Even though 15 years had passed, just 2 flowers was enough to make a tasty cup of cherry tree tea.

The teacher and the other students still creates a very pleasent enviorenment and I enjoy very much being there. One of the other students had noticed me saying that Ms Kitty is kind of cute, so this time she had brought this handtowel as a gift for me. Kawai! (Cute)

A freshmen from the Japanese defence forces (Jieitai) stopped by in the afternoon as he is a friend of senseis husband. He invited us to join a pottery class, taking place at the Jieitai ground, which we might just do!

A short update

Everything here is well.
We just spent a great weekend in Tokyo that included crazy architecture, French gourmet, Brazilian company and clubbing in the expat district, Roppongi.
In Roppongi we also visited two huge shopping complexes. One of them, the one month-old Midtown Tower has the tallest building in Tokyo Prefecture (248 m.), and the other, Roppongi Hills, is the one with the spider sculpture.

There was another Earthquake this weekend, but we did not notice it...it was probably too far away - or maybe we could not differ between what was hangovers and what was earth shaking.

Now we are back in Koriyama where the cherry trees are in full blossom and they are definitely as beautiful as expected. Unfortunately, the weather is terrible, so walking under the trees includes raincoat and gloves! Not our idea of spring.

Henrik shows the signs of a flu and is trying hard to avoid having to bear the infamous white mask.

Our program this week is rather tight, but we will try to update the blog again by the end of the week.

Sakura 2007

They finally arrived!The manyfold little pink flowers are covering the more than 1300 cherry trees in Kaiseizan park in Koriyama. Many of the trees dates back to the Meji period(1868 - 1912). We went there this evening and admired the many lit up trees among many Japanese families whom like us, strolled on the quiet trails in the park.
Afterwards, we headed for the nearby shrine where a group of well-dressed men played atmospheric traditional music on instruments we had never seen before.

We ended the evening with 'dinner' we bought from some of the many food stalls, which has been set up because of the cherry trees in bloom. We had Japanese pancakes, sausages and something with squids. We wondered as we passed a stall with a big fish tank. Were they to be eaten alive? No, apparently it is normal to buy a pet fish while you are eating a hotdog.

The food stalls led our thoughts back to Brazil, though we were not in doubt this was Japan as the temperature said 7 degrees. Saudades o sol.

Romantic dinner

To celebrate one of our anniversaries, we had made reservations on a local restaurant, Ikkon.

The great thing about Japanese restaurants, is that when you make reservations, you can either select something from the menu - or have what ever you are in the mood for. The choice is all yours, as long as you tell the chef a couple of days in advance so he can shop for ingredients.
We asked for the chef to decide the menu as long as it contained both meat and fish, and he said he would prepare something special as it was our anniversary.

When we arrived at the restaurant, we were shown into our own little personal booth. If we needed a waiter, we could just lift the phone and call, if not, we would be left to our selves unless food was being served for us.
Privacy you would think... But as (we counted) 13 different dishes were served to us, the waiters paid us a visit quite often!

The most interesting thing we tasted this evening was raw sea urchin gonads (see pic. 1). The gonads is the organ that produces the roe. As strange as it might sound, this is actually a delicacy and quite tasty.
The other picture shows the meat dish we had to grill on a stone. The very best meat in Japan, is meat with well distributed fat (the cows are actually getting massage because of that).

With the dessert we received a big flower decoration as an anniversary gift from the restaurant. The flowers looked so perfect, that we could not decide whether they were made of plastic or not. When we later unwrapped them at home, a nice scent of freshness greeted us. For sure they are real.

13 years of dating or 13 years of marriage...whats the big difference? (See the text on the card from the restaurant by doubleclick pic.).

Sweet

Our Japanese teacher brought us these lovely cakes today as an anniversary gift, as it is 13 years ago we met.
The two round cakes (the yellow, and the one with pattern of cherry blossoms) are normally used in tea ceremonies.
The others are typically spring cakes, decorated with cherry blossoms and a leave.

Made with such accuracy and aesthetics, they are beautiful.

Fab Food

This weekend we had a small break from Japanese food. Saturday the sun was leaving more than 20 degrees on the balcony, which inspired us to fire up our Brazilian barbeque for the very first time. We even managed to make Feijao Tropeiro. Delicioso!
Many thoughts were sent to our Brazilian friends that day. We miss you.

Sunday we tried to make our own little Easter lunch, with ryebread, colored eggs, snaps, and Danish cheese. Many food items and lots of people was missed, but sure, the taste of ryebread for the first time in a couple of months was heavenly :-)

Happy Easter!

Even though Easter does not exist in Japan, we are trying to let Easter in to our home anyway. Well helped by the 'gækkebreve', candy and spring flowers we have received from some of you in dk. Thank you.


On Sunday, we are planning to have a 'traditional' Danish Easter lunch, followed up by a visit to a local temple to watch the celebration of Buddha's birthday. What might seem like religion mix-up is actually just 100% tradition exploitation. :-)

Our 'Easter' ends on Monday, when Barbara will show the members of Kalmia what a gækkebrev is all about.

We wish you all a nice holiday with friends and family, and envy you the food and company.

H&B

Small quakes

You know this feeling, when you have had a little too much to drink and everything seems to spin around?

Well that is what you worry might happend in a split second until you realise that you havn't been drinking anything and that the flowers in the vase beside you really are shaking....

We felt two more earthquakes this weekend - but very small ones: The lamps didn't bother to move this time...neighter did we.

The picture is a souvenir we bought in Iwaki. It says Smile! Buying it was rather fun as the artist wanted us to take part of a kind of lottery by choosing 10 little origami folded papers from a bowl. Eventhough we only was intitled to one prize according to what our little papers said, he gave us three prizes. Sometimes it is ok to stick out from the crowd. Each prize was a little stone on which he had painted small cute fish.

The differences are small but noticeable

Going to a hairdresser in Japan could be just another routine task if it wasn’t for the 'small' language barrier and the fact that all the magazines at the saloon only contain people with black straight hair and thus does not offer an option that could work out for a curly darkblond guy.
What would YOU do? Well, Henrik used his well prepared ace: A picture he had cut out from a Danish magazine (we all want to look like actors right? :-D) The ace worked out just fine.

The whole hairdresser experience in Japan was not that different from one in Europe or South America, but nevertheless, there were these small things that just gave an extra feel to it, like when you receive a white warm washcloth to refresh your face with or when they carefully brush away tiny hairs with a miniature brush. These are small things but still characteristics of a high service level that can be found in many situations here in Japan.

P.S. The charge was just 250 d.kr.