Korea

Korean rules of the road

We made it back to Seoul from Gyeongju today without incident.  We had a great trip, but we’re glad to be home.  I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow, but in the meantime, here are some thoughts I wanted to share with you about driving in Korea (in case you ever decide to drive here).  After driving down the entire length of the country and spending 11 hours on the road, I discovered some new things about driving in Korea I did not know.  While driving through the Korean countryside is not too different from driving in the U.S., it still requires a bit of a paradigm shift to get the hang of the unique aspects of Korean driving.

  1. Big brother is always watching you.  Imagine driving with no police around to ticket you.  You can drive as fast and free as you’d like, right?  Wrong.  There are surveillance cameras posted everywhere along roads in Korea, even on backroad highways.  The Koreans are even nice enough to alert you when a surveillance camera is approaching.  "Police Enforcement 500m" signs are posted all along the route.  Well, that’s awfully nice of them to let you know there’s a speed trap coming.  Unfortunately, they come up every 2-3 kilometers, making driving a stop and go affair.  If you’re caught speeding on camera, you’ll be mailed a ticket.  Even if you’re going the speed limit, the cars around you always seem to slow up before the surveillance cameras.  After awhile you get used to it.  Still, as an American who prefers some privacy, the thought of being under near-constant surveillance while driving can be unnerving.
  2. Hazard lights mean trouble ahead.  I like this one.  Traffic jams happen so frequently here that Korean drivers use their hazard lights on the freeway when they have to slow down suddenly due to traffic congestion.  This lets drivers behind them know that traffic trouble lies ahead, theoretically decreasing the number of rear-end collisions and multi-car pile-ups.  I’m sure it makes a difference.
  3. The arrows in the driving lanes don’t mean what you think they mean.  It took me a long time to figure this one out.  When you’re driving in the far left and you come upon an arrow in your lane pointing to the right, it does not mean your lane is ending.  It means you need to move over to the far right lane to exit the freeway or tollway.  Lane arrows in Korea generally tell you how to exit the freeway, not what will happen to your lane.  When you see the U-turn arrow while driving in the middle lane, don’t make a U-turn.  Go to the far left lane to make a U-turn.
  4. If something is broken, build another one.  This one amazes me.  All along Interstate 1, the main north-south tollway, we drove through construction at a snail’s pace (80 kph/50 mph).  Along the way I literally saw a parallel tollway being built.  Rather than repair the existing road, Korea apparently decided to build a new freeway.  It seems a bit overkill to me.  The roads are generally great in Korea, perhaps because the country has meticulously invested in its transportation infrastructure.
  5. Yellow plus green equals two stoplights.  If you see two lights at a stoplight, remember that the one on the left tells the left turning lane what to do, while the right one tells through traffic what to do.  A left arrow plus green means that left-turning and through traffic can go, while, a yellow light on the left and green on the right means that left-turning traffic should stop.  A single green light means only through traffic can go.  Red still means red. 

A visit to Gyeongbokgung

I decided to post a couple blog entries today to make up for the days I’ll be away on tour.  As you can probably tell from my recent blog entries, my family and I have traveled further a field to see more of this beautiful country.  Korea is a nice, livable place.  The weather has also been relatively nice.  We haven’t been through the dreaded dead of winter or the monsoon season yet, but so far we are very happy with our assignment choice.

We went to downtown Seoul today to visit Gyeongbokgung (경복궁), the primary royal palace in Seoul.  Gyeongbokgung was the seat of power during the Joseon (조선) Dynasty (1392-1910).  The palace is very picturesque.  We took dozens of photos at the palace, some of which made their way into a photo album on this blog.  Some visitors who have also visited the Forbidden City in Beijing commented that Gyeongbokgung is not as impressive as the Forbidden City, home to China’s emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties.  Where the Forbidden City is grand and immense, Gyeongbokgung is understated and intimate.  I much prefer the latter myself.  While both seem to share about the same amount of acreage, Gyeongbokgung blends in much better with its surroundings than does the Forbidden City.  Also, the mountains to the north of Gyeongbokgung provide a gorgeous relief.  I had previously visited the palace with my colleague from Guangzhou, China (see April’s archive), but the day we visited was a public holiday and the palace was closed.  Today, it was open and teeming with people from around the world.  We really enjoyed our visit, and we explored the entire palace grounds save the National Folklore Museum.  (Our son is definitely an explorer—he kept us busy wandering throughout the palace grounds.)  Along the way, we ran into the wife of my friend from the University of Washington MBA program who dined in our home earlier this month (see May’s archive).  She is a palace tour guide, and her uniform is a hanbok (한복), traditional Korean dress.  We were very surprised to see her there, because we had no idea that she worked at the palace.  We talked briefly and promised to get together again soon. 

I was also pleasantly surprised to find Gyeongbokgung relatively uncommercialized.  A few years ago, Starbucks opened a coffee shop in the Forbidden City, and many Chinese were disgruntled that an American icon would be allowed to operate inside China’s imperial palace.  The brouhaha eventually settled down, and Starbucks is still there serving coffee.  A Pizza Hut faces the pyramids at Giza, Egypt.  You can buy a McDonald’s Big Mac or bucket of KFC chicken next to the Great Wall in Badaling, China.  Despite being situated in the center of Seoul, Gyeongbokgung has no such trappings.  The palace has one discreet Korean snack shop/gift shop located toward the palace gardens.  Fortunately, my wife and I managed to find an adequate Korean souvenir to buy at the small shop.  We have an unusual collection—we buy miniature monuments from around the world.  We try to find a miniature that depicts the symbol of each place we visit.  For example, we bought a miniature Eiffel Tower in Paris and a miniature Statue of Liberty in New York City.  Individually, the monuments range from kitschy to elegant.  Together, they form a miniature view of the world when you arrange them together.  It’s much easier to find monuments in major cities.  However, Tokyo and Seoul are two places where it’s especially difficult to find good miniatures.  Three and a half months after arriving in Korea, we finally found a hand-sized miniature that symbolizes Korea, and just added it to our collection.  It’s a miniature of the main building at Gyeongbokgung.  It looks great.  I posted a photo of the collection.  Enjoy!

Getting ready for Gyeongju

Last night I crashed after a long week, so I missed my blog session.  Unfortunately, I also may not be able to post again for a couple of days.  Tomorrow morning, we will brave the crowds on Korean Memorial Day weekend and will head to Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla Dynasty.  It’s one of the sites prominently listed on the World Adventurers’ Top Ten List of Things to Do in Korea.  The Silla Dynasty dominated the Korean Peninusula from 57 B.C. until 935 A.D.  In 676 A.D., Silla conquered the neighboring kingdoms of Korguryo and Baekche and unified the entire country under one ruler.  Gyeongju was Unified Silla’s seat of power, and today it is home to many of Korea’s greatest historical treasures.  The site was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in December 1995.  We will drive down to Gyeongju tomorrow and will stay there for a couple of days.  I may not be able to post to my blog in the interim, but I will catch up and tell you all about our trip when I return.