Day 4 - King Sejouns Tomb, Pottery, Ceramics and Whiskey

We men stayed with the clubs presidents family. His daughter, Amanda works as an interpreter at a Lotte department store in Seoul and spoke english well. In the evening we showed photographs and ate a light night time snack.

In the morning we were greeted by the members of a new Rotary Club and were taken to Yeongneung to visit the Royal Tomb of King Sejong.
This king is the one that is famous for inventing the korean alphabet "Hangul". He is also credited with inventing a rain gauge and we saw many other technical machines - a sundial that shows the time (direction of shadow) and the calender information (length of shadow). There was also the remains of a waterclock.

Walking into the tomb area there are 3 lanes after the "Red spiked gate". The gate here had not only red and blue (ying and yang - earth and sky) drops, but also yellow, according to our guide to signifiy people as a third element important to King Sejong.
You always walk on the right side going towards it. There was a T-shaped shrine at the end of the walkway, where ceremonial gatherings are held. The layout of the shire is such that you have to bow deep to see the tomb which is on a hill behind the shrine. This way you are sure to show respect.
Walking up to the tomb we saw the governement officers and soldiers guarding the tomb, including horses for transportation. There where two stone tables infront of the grave, one for the king and one for the queen buried in a separate tomb right next to the king under the same mound.

Around the mound there were rams (sheep) and tigers protecting the king and queen against enemies.

There must have been 25 groups of school children on the grounds at the same time with us. Eagerly and noisily discussing, shouting "Hello" or "Hi" to us. Kristjan was their absolute favorite, being 2 m tall they turned around as he walked passed. Many wanted to catch his attention.

Next we drove to ... for lunch. This time we got chairs to sit on! Lunch was again a large buffet served to the table. The fresh tasting smoked fish and smooth soft marinated lotus fruit were some of my favorites this day.

Next followed a pottery, were we got to try our hands at both forming the spinning clay and drawing / chisseling away a decoration of our liking. We could do anything we wanted or draw pictures from the collection of black and white drawings the pottery had.

We next headed to CeraMix exhibition in Icheon Korea Ceramic Foundation. The outdoor exhibition included plates used to create a shale-like shoreline, fountains and ceramic flowers on metal pins like waterflowers.
We saw some of the top biennale pricetakers from the first 6 ceramics biennale that attract worldwide attention. In particular I enjoyed the Japanese teapot where the pipe was integrated into the handle in a simple minimalistic design.

Thereafter we headed for dinner. Western style steak at Vincent Van Gogh restaurant. The appetizers were served from a buffet table and it included a softdrink fountain. As we walked into the restaurant I however spotted "Chateau Mani" - wine and as the meal progressed I dared to ask about having a taste of it. That was easily arranged and we had to celebrate that by singing first "Helan Går" and then "O än går det vågor...". I need to brush up my wine song skills so we can pull of some of them later + get the words for "Hell and Gore" for the team and interpreter. The steak was well hung and suitably done, combined with the half a potato and the additional salads we however again ate a lot!

We needed to find a mobile phone and WiFi solution and headed to E-Mart. "No dice" - head up to KT or SK shops on the street outside"... OK we found 5 SK shops in the next junction, the 2nd of them served Apple products. However getting a data plan equipped pre-paid is not possible. Nor was it feasible to buy an iPhone without a contract, so we left emptyhanded. The sales women thought Kristjan reminded of Hagrid from Harry Potter and then went on to teach me words like: Jeppuda - pretty, Mochida - Handsome, Kiopda - Cute and Arumpada - Beautiful. Useful in describing Isabella, Axel, Camilla and Tarja off my photos.

After a short vanride to Suanbo Royal Hotel (same place as first night) and a lightining visit to the rooms we went out for a night of Megjew (Beer), Sotschu (19% Rice vodka), Scotch and Salmiakkikoskenkorva. We also had very interesting discussions about the media world in the city where a publication paid for by only advertisement (like Metro in Helsinki and many other cities) still distributes 8500 papers per day with 5-7000 viewers on Internet in a town with 210 000 inhabitants.
Chungju-shi is one of the bigger towns in the province.
http://eng.cb21.net/home/sub.do?menu_key=13

We also discussed that one of the Rotary members has his family stay a large part of the year in Vancouver and his son plays icehockey in a Canucks youth team.