When we are far away from home, we may look for the familiar to make us feel more settled or connected to the place we now find ourselves. When travelling, I have found my two comfort zones rest firmly between anything to do with books and anything to do with nature. Today, I went looking for both.

I’d like to clarify that I am not in any way feeling uneasy, uncomfortable or unhappy where I am right now. Quite the opposite in fact. Today I think I searched out these things more as a comparison, to size up what Seoul has to offer in respect of these two most precious of things to me.

My first destination of the day – the Starfield COEX Mall. Why a mall you ask? This is why…

Welcome to the Starfield Library.

I’ve seen this picture plastered over a million blogs about Korea. It has books in it. It looks cool. Of course I would want to see it.

The Starfield Mall is…well a shopping centre. It is exactly what you would expect. There are clothes shops and food shops and the like, and if you are into that, well, good for you. In the centre of the mall though stands the library. It’s an interesting place. The giant book display above is just that, a display. However, circled around the centre atrium are books that you can indeed check out and read. Or actually, you don’t even have to do that. You can wander up to any shelf, pluck a book out, and go and sit in a nearby chair and read to your heart’s content. Which in fact I saw many people doing.

Parents reading to their children. Kids curled up with a manhwa (that’s a Korean comic book/graphic novel by the way – incredibly popular here). Teens and adults studying, books open at desks and scribbling notes as they go. It just struck me as incredibly relaxed and accessible. For me, at a time when I worry about the closing of libraries and book shops in the UK, here in Korea, print media still appears to be thriving. Even with the obvious mobile phone addiction, Koreans do appear to still find value in books. At least, that’s my impression, I could be totally wrong.

Feeling inspired and happy by seeing people enjoying the library, I can’t help but wander around the corner to the only shop I want to visit, YP books (yes, they have a branch here too). I wander amongst the shelves and displays, admire the artwork on the covers, reveling in the warm fuzzy feeling I always get around books, but my pleasure is somewhat tainted here in Korea.

Because I can’t read the books.

And I tell you, this is actually a frustrating and upsetting feeling. To pick up a book and not even be able to understand the front cover is incredibly disconcerting. The first page of a book, the precious first few words I rely on to invite me inside, are out of my grasp. It strikes me right to my core, like rocking the foundations of who I am. I can’t read Korean. I can’t read these books. I can’t access the knowledge and a million different worlds contained inside them. I am cut off from such an integral part of this society, a chance to further my understanding of a different culture.

Other people for whom books are not a lifeline, might not understand this. But for me, it is absolutely gutting. It weighs heavily on me, and feel deep down a sense somewhere between exasperation and disappointment in myself that I can’t read another language.

And I totally get why you might be sitting there and thinking this might be a little silly, but for me, it’s not. Especially as I have invested so much of myself in attempting to learn Korean for the past couple of years. Give me a text book with a conversation about the weather, being invited to a party, describing someone’s appearance or going on a trip and I can read it to you and translate what it says. Pick up a children’s book with the simplest of stories, and I’m lost. I can’t even read a book for a 5 year old.

Urgh. I hate this.

And fuelled by this total disappointment I march over to the TOPIK section of the store (that’s the Korean proficiency exam by the way) and spend a good half hour or so going through all the books before selecting this one to try…

I absolutely refuse to finish spending 3 months in this country and find that I haven’t improved my language skills at all. Even just having a firm grasp on basic grammar will satisfy me.

Anyone who knows me well can attest for my goal and challenge setting behaviour; my 3 things for the year list, the to-do lists that extend for miles, the ‘my word is my bond’ attitude that I just can’t seem to shake. Let me tell you, I have yet to fail in something I have said I will do. I might not always be the best at something, hell, I might royally screw up things I set out to do, but I would say I have never outright failed at anything. And for some reason, whatever the reason, I simply cannot admit defeat when it comes to attempting to at least learn a functional, moderate level of the Korean language. I may never be able to fully watch a 16 hour drama and understand it without subtitles, but goddamn it I want to be able to go into a restaurant and confidently order a meal without being terrified of being asked a question I don’t understand, or be able to ask polite conversational questions to a new person I have just met, or read a nice children’s book. I quite simply refuse to give up. Even if it takes me the next ten years.         

And with that determination simmering away, I bought my book, went next door and got a smoothie (don’t get excited – it was an automated ordering board and then was simply handed my drink), and went out to wander the area and breathe for a bit.

(A bit of a PS. here – the COEX mall also has a big aquarium and exhibition centre, I didn’t really feel like those things today, so I might be back, particularly as the aquarium has been in a drama favourite of mine – I Hear Your Voice).

The two specific areas I chose to wander are just slightly to the north of the COEX mall, Cheongdam and Apgujeong, Why these areas? Well, to be frank, it’s apparently where the rich people in Seoul live and I wanted to see what that looked like.

I took an easy route from the mall, following the main road, checking out the nice clean architecture along the way. Although not a city person, I like the diversity of the buildings and structures here in Seoul, the creativity that has gone into some of them. Additionally in this area, the pavements and footpaths are lovely, clean and pretty; they look like someone has just swept them for my benefit and planted and maintained lovely flowers and grasses along the way. Admittedly I should say that I actually have found all the areas in the city to be clean so far. Some areas might look a little rougher around the edges than others, but I don’t see litter or graffiti or anything of that ilk scattered around.    

   

I take a detour as I particularly wanted to wander through Cheongdam Neighbourhood Park. And again, Seoul does parks well. This one is well forested, quiet and serene. There are set areas for exercising and games such as a badminton court, open areas for yoga or tai-chi (and other specific Korean forms of these, I guess) and the ubiquitous open air gym equipment that every drama watcher will recognise. And indeed, these areas are all used. I saw two young lads playing badminton, an older lady and gent gently swinging on the leg walking gym thing, and another gentleman practising some type of slow body movement exercise. I low-key watch them go through their paces and what springs to my mind is the fact I thinks British people would be too self-conscious to do stuff like this in public. I love the fact there are lots of outdoor facilities here to make use of, and the people here do, but pop these things at home in a park and I have a funny feeling they’d be ignored and people would be too embarrassed to go up and use them. Just my feeling though.

In fact, watching the Korean people at large, they appear to be fairly open to do whatever they like (within reason) in public. It’s almost like individuals are living in their own world and not really interested in others and therefore no-one is really paying attention to each other. I’ve seen people walk down the street and suddenly start swinging their arms or massaging their backs or doing other fitness-type things just randomly. For some reason it slightly takes me aback, but no-one else here seems to notice. Likewise I was walking home the other afternoon and randomly sitting out in the middle of the pavement were three older chaps with stools and a table playing Baduk (it’s known as Go in other countries and played on a slightly chess-looking board with black and white counters). There didn’t seem to be any reason for their choice of location, just almost like they were out for a stroll together, suddenly got the urge to play and whipped out the chairs, table and board from their pockets.

Anyway, I digress. The park was rather wonderful just to walk through. It has established paths and signposts in Korean and English. Plenty of seats to sit and relax (which I did and bird watched for a bit – some more magpies and a jay too!). And I was surprised by the steepness of the paths going through the woods, mini hills in quite a small park. I could hear the pinging sounds of golf clubs nearby and eventually stumbled onto a huge 3 tier golf range full to the brim of people whacking balls. Golf is rather huge here amongst the wealthy, I believe it is the go-to sport for them.

Exiting the park I headed into the direction of Apgujeong Rodeo – this is apparently the shopping area of the uber rich. Yes, I can believe it…

Although still Chuseok and therefore most stores were closed, there were a couple accepting visitors, but clearly only visitors of a certain social level. Each high end store had the equivalent of bouncers outside (sorry, but I’m pretty sure all of them were 15 year old lads dressed in fancy black suits) and I can only assume their job was to request to see your bank balance before you stepped insde.

As interesting as it was to see this, and the Gucci building really was quite pretty, to be honest it’s not really my scene. I was actually more interested in seeing these…

Yup, just a little k-pop excitement on my walk, for these are the Gangnamdols.

Look, don’t ask me what they really are cause I have no clue. I don’t know who came up with them or what their real purpose is, other than just something to give people to pose and have selfies with, but they are yet other Korean tourist thing to see, so here I am. And actually I am only here because the little grey one is promoting EXO (my only k-pop choice), but I was also quite happy to see a SHINee one too.

Today was obviously the correct choice of day for this activity too because during the day I had heard two EXO songs in two different shops, which made me giggle internally like a 13 year old girl. Yup, I can do hard-core culture but I can also do fangirling because I am adaptable and diverse like that. 🙂

A sprinkle of rain and that’s the sign to head home for the day.

Catch you again soon…