Icheon Pottery Village

A place I've meant to visit for quite a while now is the Icheon pottery village. This is a place where craftsmen throw their pots and fire them in the traditional wood burning kilns, like the one shown above, and where they each have a shop showing off their wares.

The trip there takes about an hour by express bus either from Seoul or Suwon.

This little shop had some of the best celadon ware on display at quite reasonable prices. Celadon is a glazing technique developed by Chinese potters to mimic jade, that lucky and heavenly stone, in vessels that ordinary people could own. The artists are two brothers, Kim Bu Yung and Kim Ha Yung.

The glazes vary from a delicate bluish green to a darker aquamarine hue, and good celadon ware has a depth to the glaze that makes you feel as if you are gazing into it. These ones certainly had that.

This shop, belonging to Hyang Ro Bit, also displayed some of the rami cloth quilting made by his wife. Rami cloth is similar to linen, but is stiffer and more airy at the same time, and is used for summer hanboks, as opposed to silk and brocade for winter ones. Unfortunately the shop itself was not open yet, so I couldn't go in (yes, I know, the door is standing open, but that was to get air into the shop!), and had to content myself by snapping a picture that is less than perfect due to the reflections in the windows.

This shop belongs to one of the female potters, Hyu Li Min, and this display of plants complemented the flowery designs of her work on the big urns in the background.

This shop specialises in kimchi pots. The kimchi pot is made with thick red clay walls, then it is glazed with an iron rich glaze to give the almost blackish brown colour. They come in all sizes - small, ornamental or gift pots to the big, serious ones that will hold the kimchi for a whole family.

If you're ever wondering how to spend a pleasant morning, if you like pottery and pots, and if you want to buy some truly unique pots from the artists, you could visit this delightful place.

DMZ visit

All that was needed to convince me I'd travelled back in time and was at a stope entrance at Grootvlei gold mine back in South Africa was the sound of the drills and the rattle of the cocopans as they trundled ore out, but then reality struck home - I was standing at the point where South Koreans had intercepted a North Korean tunnel dug under the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ.

North Korean soldiers or slave labour had dug, chiselled and blasted this tunnel and three others under the 4 km wide stretch of border with the intention of either infiltrating or attacking the South. That is, the South Koreans have discovered four tunnels - there may be some they have not found.

We headed down the tunnel from this point to the place where the last (or first, depending on your point of view) of three barriers blocked the tunnel. A steel door, barbed wire and a small window through which you could see the next barricade. The thought of the recent saber-rattling that had been done by NK suddenly did not seem so far away or unlikely to erupt into real warfare.

This peaceful fountain, with its oak tree and bushes, stands outside the barracks and post where Korean soldiers keep watch over the valley. On a clear day you can see all the way to the NK watchpost on the other side. The Korean on the stone of this fountain, 망항수, means watchport.

The juxtaposition of this buddhist bell tower and the camouflage brings home just how commonplace it has become - over fifty years of watching each other across the border, at times the leaders talk and then they don't, but we watch and live our lives here.

Here I am under the ROK sign on the wall of the barracks.

The visit was surreal on many levels, not least of which was the thought that tourists come here every day, looking out across the border at what is, after all, merely a prolonged cease-fire. I think this is what I sensed that day - the Korean war is by no means over. I pray that it soon will be, and that the unification so many Koreans dreams of will become a reality.

Water, water everywhere...

No, this is not some weird moonwalk or some more Caribbean Bay fun - it's a long exposure taken to try and capture the water flood that followed on two days of solid, and I mean solid, rain!

The bus we were on spent 40 minutes here as people argued about whether we could move from the high ground we were on here, to the lower parts and get through the water.

Here is a video showing the bus driver and several passengers and police arguing. The telegraph pole at the end is significant - normally you can see about 2 meters of black and yellow stripes. Eventually we did edge our way through, passing a less fortunate bus canted at 45 degrees in a ditch!

Caribbean Bay

So after the last weekend's fun, Sean and I dragged a reluctant Christine (so it was mom and the  two kids!) to Caribbean Bay. Up above you get a panoramic view of one of the pools and the supertube (watertube?) winding its way down the hill. I tell you, the one thing that is tiring is climbing those steps to build up the potential energy so that you can translate it into kinetic energy - talk about physics in action.

Speaks for itself, doesn't it?

This is the bottom of the Boomerango slide, and a fraction of the crowd that was waiting to ride it.

One of the fun experiences - having a bucket containing about a 1000 liters of water dumped on you! Luckily it splashes onto a little balcony of evenly spaced boards first!

The wave pool, from the deep end. No, I'm not in the water, there is a ledge here. You'll notice that all the people here at the deep end are in life jackets - apparently Koreans either cannot swim or are too lazy to tread water. So you hang there in your life jacket, bobbing up and down like a duck as the waves pass beneath you...give me Clifton, or Blouberg Strand, or Jeffrey's Bay any day!

Seoul in brief

On Sunday my son and I traveled to Yongsan to shop for some computer goodies in the big electronics market there. Here is a view of the plaza in front of the market and some of the highrise apartments in Seoul.

We decided to go from Yongsan to Jonggak to visit the Jongno Tower - shown here, and to have supper in the restaurant at the top.

This was after indulging in a cutlet meal(shown below) at a little Japanese restaurant at Yongsan station. The meal consisted of pork and chicken cutlet and cold buckwheat noodles in clear broth.

This is the view from the top of the Jongno Tower. On the right of the picture, in the centre, you can see the Cheongggyecheon stream, one of the projects that the current president of Korea, Mr Lee Myun Bak, launched when he was the mayor of Seoul. It really has become a haven of rest and peace for people working in the area, and as we strolled along it we saw many people dabbling their feet in the water and just relaxing with friends and family.

Caribbean Bay

With my son visiting in the heat of summer, I finally grabbed the opportunity to visit a major waterpark here in South Korea, Caribbean Bay. Above you see the entrance and hordes of Koreans waiting for the gates to open - this happens at 9:30 - and since we got there at 8:45 I don't want to know what time they got up!

Sean waiting patiently in line!

Peanut-buttered squid and bottled coffee - these Koreans are crazy~

Avast mateys, and it's oh hi Rio, away we sail, and we're bound for the wild sea, never to fail!

Sean and I had a lot of fun - the park has many indoor and outdoor attractions, including a lot of water slides down which you can scoot either on a tube or, as the Koreans put it, body slide. The most spectacular of these tube runs is a thing called the Boomerango, a huge orange construction that sends four people in a big raft down a steep incline to shoot up a wall, down again and into a pool. I did not take the camera on these rides, it not being waterproof, but we discovered on our way out that you can buy waterproof bags for your camera.

So, we will be back and this time we'll document the slides and rides!

Suwon

Suwon city is, like a lot of the cities in South Korea, a blend of the old and new, and I'd like to share some photos of the Hwasung fortress - a stone wall that runs around a large part of Suwon and preserves the pavilions and the palace from the Joseon dynasty.

Here is a typical guards' pavilion - high above the surrounding countryside (unfortunately it was very misty day so you are not able to see the panorama it commands), and with a belfry housing a bronze bell with which to signal the alarm.

This is the training centre where the guards were drilled and practiced their archery. The Korean bow is very springy and the archery technique is quite different from the modern techniques. 

In the picture below you can see the wall, part of the fortress, where you tie your prayers and wishes for the gods to answer. Embroidered silk bags house each prayer, and I'm not sure if the opulence of the bag has anything to do with how quickly you'll be answered!

This is me in front of the main pavilion, pretty much where the captain of the guard would be during the shift, and from where he would co-ordinate any battle. 

Shown in this picture  is the main gate to the fortress and the wall extending to both sides.

You can walk along the top of the wall, a nice hike of about 10 kilometres, and it gives you some idea of what the Great Wall of China must be like.

If you're ever in Suwon, take the city tour and experience some of this for yourself.