Seoul – Seodaemun Prison

im not sure if this attraction receives many visitors – there werent too many people when we were there – but Seodaemun Prison is one of the places that i liked the most in Seoul, and one that i’d recommend to anyone visiting the city.

Seodaemun Prison was constructed during the Japanese occupation, and if i recall correctly, is infamous for being the place where most of the tortures and interrogations of korean freedom fighters were carried out.

 

the koreans’ dislike for - or perhaps more accurately, their hatred of – the japanese is evident from all the descriptions at tourist attractions, and is perhaps most evident here. while most museums and attractions use neutral words in their descriptions, in korea, you see a lot of emotive language, such as “japanese aggressors”.

there were a fair number of figurines in the prison. this is a portrayal of a japanese prison warden:

there were others showing prisoners undergoing various forms of torture:

above: beatings and electric shock tactics

below: the fingernail-yank torture technique

there was also a track with some life-like screams of pain. the main building was less creepy than the prison museum i visited in sydney, however. the latter was rather eerie because it was even emptier than the one in seoul, yet the few visitors there were enough to make the wooden floorboards creak – just imagine hearing strange sounds in a quiet building, where you are the only person in sight. *shudder*

this particular prison seemed to have been built for efficiency; it was just cell after cell, and was drafty and cold. just imagine the conditions the prisoners had to endure in the harsh korean winter!

 

there were several other buildings on the premises. one of them was an underground female prison, where the cells were so small that the inmates could never stand up straight or lie down flat. in another particularly scary block were dark cells that from which recordings of screams of pain and terror periodically play, catching the random visitor unaware.

there were also two enormous south korean flags on the side of two of the blocks, presumably to reinforce the fact that seoul korea is now independent.

thoughts on seoul – overview and food

i spent the last week of march in seoul, which was unfortunately long enough to discover that there really isnt much to do there.

i admit to not being the biggest fan of korea, but with so many people around me raving about the country, plus it’s right there and so close to japan, i did go there with an open mind and the intention to give it a chance, be objective about the country and, most importantly, enjoy myself there.

seoul’s main attractions remind me of china, japan and thailand all rolled into one. the palaces are a combination of chinese and japanese stylistic elements – just less grand than the forbidden palace, for example - while the many markets about the city are very similar to those in thailand. having been to all of those countries very recently, seoul didnt really present anything new; i felt like i’d seen it all before, just rehashed.

the city itself reminded me of shanghai. while certain areas were new and shiny, with skyscrapers and conspicuous consumption, just next to them might be the older neighbourhoods, with buildings that clearly display signs of age and dirty roads.

lots of older people in seoul also like to hack up phlegm and phtttoey it out onto the streets – which is really disgusting behaviour – and the several times when i heard the sharp, short beep of the horn from a motorcycle speeding up from behind on a narrow alley, or when a car ploughed through a red light and still had the audacity to horn at the pedestrians, reminded me of beijing.

frankly, china really wasnt the best of experiences, and the whole look of seoul reminded me too much of china for comfort.

that doesnt mean seoul wasnt interesting though. seoul has great museums, and what attractions it has are interesting. however, beyond those attractions – and especially if you’re not interested in shopping – there isnt much to occupy your interest. i like being able to sit somewhere picturesque, like a park or along a waterfront and relax, but there werent any opportunities for that. places that were described as pretty in the guidebook – like Wolmido in Incheon – turned out to be disappointingly underwhelming, thus we decided not to check out the Han River – which was described as good for cycling and walking, and not for the view anyway - lest we get disappointed yet again, especially given the freezing winds and cold weather when we were there.

food in korea is quite cheap in comparison to japan though, which is really good. i discovered that there isnt too much variety to korean food however – it’s either some variety of barbequed meat or spicy soup, or bibimbap or chijimi, or some unidentifiable item – but fortunately there’s plenty of other types of food in seoul. we couldnt stomach more than 1 korean meal a day, but had some good italian, not very nice fried chicken, tasty food at an irish pub, and not bad japanese food.

apparently, the korean custom is that if a restaurant is doing well, it shouldnt undergo renovations, else its luck will be altered. this meant that there were some new, nice-looking restaurants that sold food as cheap as elsewhere. we had a korean dinner at one of these places one night, and it was it was fantastic. we ordered 1 chijimi (mistake, cos a chijimi is big!) and a serving of barbequed pork ribs with side dishes. it came to about 2400yen for both of us, which is ridiculously cheap – we ate till we burst, and essentially paid half of what we would have paid in japan.

our side dishes – the chijimi wasnt out yet, and note the bowl of rice which went untouched:

here’s the deboned ribs, which were extremely tasty and soft, as well as a huge bowl of stodgy soup, the contents of which are unknown. i think there was some tofu inside, but it wasnt tasty and there was much more delicious food to eat, so it went largely untouched:

my favourite 2 side dishes:

the above is some cold but spicy soup. it was very delicious and the noodles were firm, like chinese la mian. below is zucchini with dried shrimp – it’s near impossible to get haebi in japan, and this was so so good. i would have ordered more of these 2 dishes if i had exra space at the end, but it was a struggle to finish the chijimi and meat.

 

the first lunch i had brought some tasty side dishes too:

above are, clockwise from the right – kimchi, spicy dried cuttlefish (this was amazing!), bai chye cooked in lots of sesame seeds and sesame oil (i heard that korean cooking uses a lot of sesame oil. that’s the way to go), seaweed soup, tasty beansprouts and potato with chilli.

korean food is especially cheap – unless you order the barbeque meat – as they usually come with lots of side dishes that fill you up. for example, you might be paying the same price (or less) for a bowl of bibimbap than what you do in japan, but get all the side dishes too. wonderful!