versione italiana
March - April 2003 (Korean palaces and
the opera)
With the temperature rising as spring creeps in, one
of our friends, (Valeria's boss - who is another baritone
opera singer who sang in Italy for 6 years but now owns
an Italian language school in Seoul), invited us over
for a BBQ on his apartment roof on Sunday. As we sat
on the roof 5 stories up, looking at the concrete jungle
we were surrounded by, we ate Korean pancake, followed
by several steaks which we cut into pieces and covered
with sesame leaves. Am able to handle the chopsticks
no problem these days but did wake up the next day with
soy sauce down the front of my favourite jumper. I probably
haven't mentioned enough about my better half Valeria,
in previous emails. She somehow is able to tolerate
me. A glutton for punishment. She's just on the bus
back from the airport having just landed after a day
trip to Osaka, Japan to get a work visa. We completely
chanced the fact that Valeria could get a job here as
an Italian, knowing it'd be almost impossible. I somehow
persuaded her it'd be no problem and somehow it worked
out. She eventually got a job working in an Italian
institute, working in the sales office and also doing
some teaching. This month we also visited one of the
palaces in Seoul.
All
photos by Valeria Lo Iacono & Paul Symonds
The name of the Palace shown is Ch'angdokkung Palace
and it is one of many palaces located within Seoul. This
is the best kept palace in Seoul because the last remaining
royal family lived there until relatively recently. One
can do a one and a half tour of the grounds of the palace
and there it looks like a half decent place to live. In
the back section the concubine (mistress) had her own
quarters, while the King used to live between this and
other palaces. He had wives and mistresses in each palace.
In the back of the grounds is the 'Secret Garden' and
that area is beautiful.
Above left, you can see one of the roofs
and great attention has been given to detail as you can
see what I believe are bronze carved animals. Below is
a photo of myself and Valeria taken in the 'Secret Garden'
in the back of the palace.
There always seems to be some reason why people think
I might be in danger in Asia. I am thus happy to report
that I have yet caught SARS disease, the breathing disorder
which started in HK. In fact, there have been zero reported
cases in Korea whilst it has been reported in the UK.
I also wasn't affected by the train fire, the typhoon
(few months ago) and I'm still not worried about N.Korea.
Only danger these days is from pollution. Spent last Sunday
washing the windows in our apartment and the water turned
black as it was sprayed on the windows. You can't appreciate
the depth of the pollution until you wash your windows.
Cleaning windows I found can always be a good way to spend
an afternoon if you are stocked up with good tea bags.
I guess home is different for everyone. Being so far
away from the UK by being here in Asia, I had to jump
at the offer when a friend last week offered to bring
whatever I needed (within reason) from the UK, as she
was returning for 4 days. The delivery of 120 tetley tea
bags (80 + 50% free), a copy of the Sunday times, 3 cadbury's
Easter eggs and some jaffa cakes. :) It's amazing how
nice things items can be after so long.
The changing of the guard in Korea is probably a little
less dramatic than at Buckingham Palace in London but
it was still interesting to see, even if they are guarding
nothing with no one living in the Korean palace these
days. It seems to be staged purely for tourism purposes
but I can handle it.
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