Tonight is noisy. Without a doubt.

I’m sat in bed watching TV and clear as day I can hear a crowd manically cheering somewhere in the neighbourhood. It’s 1.30am. Korea is playing in the World Cup and obviously winning right now. Even though it is freezing, I throw open the window to hear the sounds better. It’s snowing. Both of these things make me grin from ear to ear.

Only 3 more days to go before this is just another memory for me to hold tightly on to.

It certainly wasn’t a snowstorm, and in fact I’m pretty sure I saw more snow back when I climbed Taebaeksan, but still, it has snowed in Seoul while I am here and that makes me happy.

This morning, I plan to visit the last place on my palace tour that I wasn’t able to complete previously; I am heading to Jongmyo Shrine. The shrine is literally a hop, skip and jump from my accommodation; I have walked past it goodness knows how many times and yet haven’t quite ever made it in.  

According to UNESCO who has named the shrine a World Heritage Site, “Jongmyo is the oldest and most authentic of the Confucian royal shrines to have been preserved”. Here at the shrine they perpetuate the memorial services for the royalty of the Joseon Dynasty. I personally find this pretty fascinating.

I’m going to level with you here, it will be pretty hard for me to tell you about Korean memorial rites or services as I have absolutely no understanding of them beyond what I have seen in dramas, but I find the concept of them intriguing as we obviously don’t observe this funeral practice in my culture.

I apologise right from the start if I am totally mangling this, but I am simply going to explain what I understand of the concept. As far as I am aware, and what I have seen portrayed, is that when someone passes away in Korea the funeral that takes place does so in a funeral hall. There is a room in which sits an altar and a picture of the person is placed atop this surrounded by pots of flowers and incense burning sticks. People come in and pay their respects, taking flowers from the pot and placing them flat on the altar, and then bowing before speaking with the family. Honestly, I am not clear if there is a coffin in the room or not as there would be in a church service, I have never seen this shown in an obvious way. I don’t know if this is more of a memorial service.

Following this, on the anniversary of the person’s death, memorial rites are held. In the family home the picture of the person is placed on a table and is surrounded by an offering of food and drink and all the items have a specific placement, relevance, and meaning. The family gathers and they bow, a full bow to the floor and back up several times. People are often shown to speak out loud to the person who has passed away.

It is this annual memorial rite that is still performed for the royalty within Jongmyo Shrine. Instead of the photos used today, the names of the kings and queens were written on tablets and it is these that are displayed on the table with offerings.

I do not know if the belief in Korean culture is that the person’s spirit is actually contained within the tablet or photo, or if this is simply a remembrance of the person.

Now, I am not really sure what I was expecting when I visited Jongmyo, but I guess I slightly assumed that it would be akin to visiting a graveyard, where you are obviously able to wander amongst the tombstones and find out from the stones about the people buried there.

No. That’s not the case here.

The shrine tablets (that’s what I am calling them, I don’t know their official term, I apologise) I assume are housed within these buildings…

One of which, the largest, is actually screened off for restoration work.

The rest are closed and you are unable to look inside. I’m not going to lie; I was a little disappointed to discover this, but on the other hand, I obviously respect that this is the practice here. I guess in a way I was also a little disappointed that there wasn’t somewhere fully explaining the process of Korean funerals and rites for foreign visitors like myself who would be interested in learning about this. However, there was one building that at least showed how the table is arranged with the name tablet which I found very interesting to see.    

Two other things I found very interesting were this path…

This is the Sillo path. The sign here tells me that this is the pathway for spirits and not to walk on it. Apparently when a memorial tablet was brought into the shrine, the official person carrying it walked along the stone path; to the right for the king, to the left for the queen.

And this shrine… It is the only one in Jongmyo that does not belong to a member of the Joseon Dynasty, instead it belongs to Goryeo King Gongmin, but no-one has any idea why it is here or when it was installed. I obviously liked it because it was actually the only open shrine to observe.

Although Jongmyo wasn’t what I was fully expecting, it was an interesting visit nonetheless. The site itself is obviously a peaceful place to be, especially so on a cold winter’s day.

I take the opportunity to wander around slowly and absorb the atmosphere, it makes me reflective of my time here in Korea. I think back to all of the things I have seen and done, the people I have met, the changes that I think have gone on inside of me. I don’t feel sad at the thought of leaving here, and I think this fact is making me feel uneasy in some way. For all the wonderful, amazing, and happy experiences I have had here, I would expect myself to feel anxious, worried or sad about having to depart. But I don’t. I just have a sense of fullness, of fulfilment, of dreams and plans realised. I honestly feel that I am not leaving anything on the table here. While there are still hundreds of things I could do, enough to fill many more adventures in this country which I one day hope to have, right now I feel totally satisfied that I have achieved what I wanted from my travels. I came searching for something and in a million different ways I found exactly what I looking for but didn’t know it. I have been in no way disappointed. I have had an immense learning experience and will be heading home with no regrets or missed opportunities. Every day well spent. Every memory tucked away. And a forever feeling of absolute happiness and contentment.

I leave the shrine behind and head off in search of food. If there is one thing I want to be sure of before I leave, it’s that I have hit up some of the food items I missed during my ‘scared to order’ phase. So back to the market we go for something I have been dying to try but never brave enough to queue up for – a mungbean pancake.

And as if I am throwing all caution to the wind, with my pancake securely stowed away, I march on down to Cheonggyecheon Stream, sit on a rock and proceed to eat my mungbean prize.

And immediately I curse myself to have waited all this time to try it, it’s absolutely delicious. It is also huge, too large for one meal, and so once I have had my fill, I tuck the remainder into my backpack to save for dinner.

I can’t help myself, I stroll along my treasured stream and find myself in downtown Seoul, and decide to have one last blogging session in my favourite spot, the library. I deliberately decide to stay here until darkness descends, for tonight I prepare to undertake another rite of passage here in Seoul as Christmas season is upon us – it’s time to check out the Christmas lights…

      

Shinsegae Department Store is where the night time action is during the holidays, the whole front of the store lights up with a moving display and people flock here and hold up the pavements and roads watching the display.

There are of course other offerings which are pretty, but none fully compete with Shinsegae.

I decide to make the walk back to Jongno tonight. And for anyone who is wondering, no, I don’t feel nervous or unsafe. Seoul at night is as jam packed as during the day, and I personally feel fully safe in those numbers.

I have one more stop to make, the pinnacle really of my takeout quest. I go to visit a red tent.

I’m sure there is an official name for these, but really, they are just outdoor food cart restaurants with a few plastic tables and chairs under a massive red tarp tent. Until now, I have never been brave enough to venture into one, and that’s about to change.

I wander through the flap, get a little bit of a look from the lady cooking there, but she ambles over with a menu for me to look at. I already know what I want though, amazingly something I haven’t had once while here given it’s a classic – tteokbokki.

I also want the full kdrama experience here, so I order it to takeaway, and low and behold it is packaged up not in a container, but thrown straight in a plastic bag and tied up. That’s what I’m talking about.

And here ladies and gents is my dinner and dessert (I also hit up the bakery cart lady on the corner on a whim).

I couldn’t be fricken happier if I tried. I finally feel like I’ve conquered my food ordering nervousness and feel proud of myself for reaching this point. If there is one experience that can sum up the transformation I feel I have gone through this trip, this is it. Left over mungbean pancake and tteokbokki in a cup followed by egg and peanut bread.

Right now, to me, this is everything.