Sons of Loki

Changing of the guard at Deoksu-gung.

The last ten years have seen a surge of interest in Korean culture in the Far East and the wave spreading across Asia is starting to hit the shores of Europe. Films such as Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy have won critical acclaim; Korean cuisine has been increasingly popular in the US; and Korean brands like LG and Samsung are found in homes worldwide.

The source of this wave? The city of Seoul: home to over ten million Koreans, heart of the Korean peninsula, and destination for six million foreign tourists in 2006. A city steeped in history, Seoul is home to the newly-constructed National Museum of Korea, the largest museum in Asia with over 150,000 articles in its collection covering Korean history, culture, and art, as well as a expansive collection of Chinese and Japanese art.

Seoul boasts an expansive palace district in the north of the city, home to a long line of Korean kings. Built in 1405, the dazzling Changdeok-gung has been recently restored and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Meanwhile, at Deoksu-gung, Korean architecture blends with Western design in a serene palace complex. Be sure not to miss the daily changing of the guard, held three times a day at 10:30am, 2:00pm and 3:30pm, where dozens of guards parade in eye-catching traditional uniforms to ceremonial music.

Cheonggye stream, an oasis in the midst of skyscrapers.

A unique sight in Seoul is Cheonggye stream, an oasis of greenery and flowing water amongst the skyscrapers of the downtown area. Prior to 2005, Cheonggye was buried beneath concrete, but with the demolition of an overhead highway and fervent restoration work it became a favoured spot for families and couples to relax along the below-street-level banks, a respite from the inner-city traffic. Nearby, the famous Dongdaemun street market offers an amazing selection of products, from Korean traditional clothing to live octopus. For more general shopping, try Myeongdong, Seoul’s very own Oxford Street, with a host of top Western and Korean brands.

Opened in 1984, the Yeongdeungpo branch of the long-established Shinsegae chain of department stores features ten floors for fashion-lovers looking to browse to their heart’s content. Elsewhere in Yeongdeungpo stands the brand new Courtyard by Marriott Seoul Times Square complex, opened to great fanfare in September, with over fifty restaurants and a host of the world’s top fashion brands in residence – Gucci, Prada, Bulgari, Cartier, and Louis Vuitton, to name a few. And a 15,000 square metre rooftop garden ensures a haven of tranquillity above the bustling streets.

A beautiful sunset lights up downtown Seoul.

With a long history of Buddhism, Korea caters for more spiritual concerns through temples such as the Hwa Gye Sa International Zen Center, which offers free meditation sessions and organises month-long Zen retreats for the truly dedicated. And there’s no better place to experience the serenity of nature than at Bukhansan National Park, 80 square kilometres of mountainous forests and burbling creeks on the outskirts of Seoul. The immense 836m granite peak of Baekundae is a achievable if strenuous hike, and the soaring vistas of the park and distant Seoul are well worth the climb.

After a strenuous afternoon of mountain-climbing, what better place to unwind than at the 24-hour Dragon Hill Spa in Yongsan, a perfect example of the Korean jjimjilbang? A relaxation mecca spread across six floors, the Dragon Hill Spa boasts enough hot and cold baths, steam rooms and saunas to satisfy even the most weary and aching traveller. After partaking in the separate men’s and women’s baths, treat yourself to a meal at the rooftop restaurant, enjoy a swim in the heated outdoor swimming pool, or unwind in the communal unisex area with drinks, snacks, and different areas ranging from ice cold to scorchingly hot. A full range of massages and spa treatments are on hand, too.

Then relax at the W Seoul Walkerhill, in Gwanjang-dong, which offers rooms graded from “Wonderful” – which is anything but “standard”, with minimalist décor in elegant red and white and a unique foot-massaging “pebble rug” – to “Extreme Wow”: a 13^th-floor suite overlooking the Han River and featuring a LED-illuminated dining room floor, a fully stocked wine cellar, four-person Jacuzzi with stunning mountain views and your very own personal waterfall.

I cycled along Route 14 on my way back from Kichijoji. I can’t remember what I was listening to, but it seemed apt. I passed glowing family restaurants in the dark, catching a vignette of a store manager standing, alone, keeping a midnight vigil over rows of empty tables. Brief traffic flashes past. The night air whips past, cool and refreshing. This is my city.

Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.

The word of the day is “crash blossom“. On Nippon Housou 1242 AM Radio, they are debating the relative merits of YouTube and Nico Nico Douga.

The day after – or was it the same day? – I’m on the 48th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. Actually, the 47th floor, where the toilets are. Away from the bright lights and monochrome carpets of the observation deck on the floor above, the oddly-lengthy corridor to the toilets is plain, a shade of industrial beige, unadorned. It seems impossible that this floor was once open to the elements, as big-muscled construction workers wearing blue bandanas hoisted great steel beams into place, laid cabling, built stairs up to a floor that had yet to exist. If you were one of those workers putting this floor up, twenty years ago, two-hundred and thirty metres above the ground, would you be able to imagine how it would look full of tourists and gift shops and with a grand piano? How’d they get that up there, anyway? The whole place seems impossible, a logical contradiction.

Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own.

The next day – or it might have been today – Rob and I, sweltering from the heat, take a seat on a bench outside MUFJ in Kichijoji. We are killing time until the contact lenses we have ordered from the local opticians are ready, at 2pm. The lenses are made in Japan – it should be cheaper to bulk-buy them here and bring them back with us. I bought a collection of Otsuichi’s stories, Zoo 1, and the first The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya novel. I feel like we’re two old men, sitting on benches all day long.

Some time before, I’m at ICU for their end-of-term party thing. It’s a bright, sunny day. Someone hands out water pistols. I take a few photos, lie back on the grass, bask in the sun. It’s certainly summer.

Back in Shinjuku, we browse all seven floors of a branch of Marui, one filled with little boutiques for the stranger side of Tokyo fashion – gothic, lolita, punk, gothic lolita, steampunk, and various combinations of them all. Two middle-aged men dressed up like china dolls in pink frilly dresses and blonde curls stomp around on platform shoes. Victorian angels float through the merchandise. On the first floor, I buy a silkscreen print, which later covers my window.

Geologist Charles Brophy had endured the savage splendor of this terrain for years, and yet nothing could prepare him for a fate as barbarous and unnatural as the one about to befall him.

Close to midnight, I get on the wrong train and end up on the Hashimoto spur. Luckily, I can still get home before the trains stop running. I am at a station called Keio Tamagawa with about three or four other people on the platform, all of us waiting for the last train.

A lot earlier, in the book shop of the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art, I flick through glossy, enticing books on architecture. I ache with desire to become an architect and design sweeping facades of glass and pine, design for better living, live in Fallingwater and listen to jazz all day.

The simple fact is that if you are ever mentioned on page 1 of a Dan Brown novel you will be mentioned with an anarthrous occupational nominal premodifier and you will have died a painful and horrible death by page 2.

The night before ICU’s party, I’m in Koreatown with Kaz and Rob and Kanako and friends, feeling nostalgic at the PCbangs and noraebangs, mixing the egg into the bibimbap and wrapping up chunks of barbecued pork in leaves of lettuce with lashes of chilli sauce. This time a year previously, I must have been heading out to Seoul for a month. It seems like forever ago.

“”Every day I write the book”. Elvis Costello,” says the DJ on Nippon 1242.

Today, I’m back on Route 14, cycling back wearing my nice new climbing boots which I bought for scaling Mount Fuji in two weeks’ time. Everything is so perfect, so peaceful, and yet there’s an underlying current of discomfort. It can’t be summed up in words, that’s why. I’m overwhelmed by it all. The sheer beauty of nature, the overbearing unending joy of living, when everything’s going right – no one can quite write that down. It’s painful.