Seoul

Squid Game and other such creative arts have really helped South Korea to shed a biased but predominant identity coupled to their authoritarian neighbours. I don’t know what the correct description for a place full of photo booths is, but there are lots in Seoul and they were certainly more popular than a) the war museum and b) the DMZ. But for the sake of editorial integrity, I did it all. If visiting the DMZ is designed to stress the realness and seriousness of both the ongoing conflict and the living situation for those at the border, it doesn’t. “Oh look, a North Korean on a bicycle”, whispered an excited Canadian, proving my point. I should also share an important health warning. If you are over 6ft, taking a walk into the underground tunnels is going to leave you holding either an uncomfortably deep squat or in a semi-permanent bow. Each comes with its own challenges.

Unless anxiety stops you sleeping well anyway, you’re going to be in a whole world of ‘jetlagged’ pain when visiting Korea from anywhere west of Bhutan. Luckily, it’s a quite delightful place to wander early in the mornings. You can join several silent Korean women in walking up the Namsan hill for some early morning exercise, or stroll along Seoul’s answer to the NYC Highline (nice but worse). Views and charming encounters are almost certainly guaranteed.

Gyeongbokgung Palace is one of five in Seoul that you may enter for free if you elect to wear Hanbok - Korea’s traditional dress. As impressive as the palace was, I was drawn to those in the clothes much more intensely. It was clearly joyful for those participating, but I felt strongly that I would feel wretchedly embarrassed in Hanbok. I am firmly the product of a Western liberal orthodoxy that makes clear the wearing of traditional dress of foreign nations is a form of unacceptable appropriation. Would you wear the dress of the Masai tribes when observing lions in The Mara? I hope not. And yet in Seoul, Europeans wearing Hanbok seemed to be celebrated and encouraged. Fortune may favour the un-woke.

I wonder what the world was like before people put padlocks on public infrastructure. Seoul isn’t as burdened as Paris, but in a corner of Namsan, at the foot of Seoul Tower, you would be forgiven for misidentifying this encumbered staircase railing. Fame was attached to this particular spot in 2021, when a woman went viral on TikTok for travelling all the way from LA to cut off the padlock she had attached with her now ex-partner. This level of vindictiveness is exactly what I believe we should all be aspiring to.

Starbucks makes about $2bn in Korea, that’s a lot of iced lattes. And there are other coffee shops too - lots of them. Its omnipresent. Despite all this, it’s almost impossible to get a croissant for breakfast. As I write I feel a tinge of embarrassment that I would admit this, but the idea of having essentially a Korean BBQ for breakfast threatened me to my very core. I was tired, and vulnerable, and I wanted something sweet and delicious to prepare me for the day. Just as I thought all was lost, I found this place, which sold flat croissants. I don’t know why they were flat and I don’t know who thought that was good or right, but beggars can’t be choosers and let me tell you I went back four days in a row.

I left Seoul with a memory card filled with pictures of Korean text. To my untrained eye, the language was both art and communication. I didn’t know what it said, but I liked to look at it. I suspect Koreans don’t feel that about the English alphabet. For those of you that read Korean (maybe none) you will enjoy that this is a) a Chinese character and b) is translated to mean ‘Turtle’. But it is only thanks to the modern wonder of AI that I have even the faintest idea.