One of those days

November 19th 2016

It is one of those days that you just can't anticipate — who would have thought that we would be hanging around in the middle of the Han at 3°C at night?
Our host in Hongdae, Jae Won, has invited us out to go sailing.
With four / five layers of clothing respectively we take the metro to the Seoul Marina on the Han river where we meet two friends of Jae Won who will be joining us today. Usually, Jae Won organizes these trips for tourist groups but everybody has cancelled for today so it's just us five on the boat.
The third jacket remains in my backpack as a reserve for now.
As the sun sets, we head out onto the river and past the lit up skyline of Seoul — pretty impressive. We are almost alone out here on the water: Apart from one or two sight seeing cruises, we don't see another soul in the two hours we spend here — surreal, considering that we are right at the heart of a city of 10 million people.
While we are out on the water, we also learn that Gangnam roughly translates to 'south of the river' while Gangbuk means 'north of the river'. A bit like Hibbdebach and Dribbdebach in Korean*.

*Translation Note: This is a cultural concept unique to Frankfurt that unfortunately doesn't make it through translation.
We chat with Jae Won and his friends and discover that we talking to no one less than the guitarist of the Korean indie band No Reply (heard of them?). Also our host seems to be somewhat known in Korea as a writer and radio person that is also somehow caught up in the showbiz.
Ji-Young doesn't have as much of a dubious claim to fame, but she teaches English, which comes in handy for our little chat. All three of them are super nice and invite us to join them for dinner afterwards — in a defunct VW van outside a restaurant where we cook ramen on a gas stove and have some chicken and beer — quite the experience.
And now that we're sitting around the stove, we take the chance to ask each of them a question from our book:

Yi-Young's choice is the difficult question #999 — "What will your life look like in 10 years?". She tells us about how she would like to help narrow the chasm between rich and poor through education. And after long stays abroad in Hong Kong, China, and Indonesia, she'd love to spend some time in Europe now.

Jae Won gets a similarly challenging question: No. 113 — "Is there something in your life that you weren't able to properly close off?" Yes, his current experimental stage in life. After quitting his job in the K-Pop industry and now renting out his apartment, writing and producing radio, he also wants to start a hostel in Seoul.

Mr. No Reply*, whose name I unfortunately wasn't able to remember, chooses the easier question #77: "What is your kind of humour?" somehow turns into "What makes you laugh?" in translation, but there's not too much of a difference there. His answer "When Ji-Young goes to the gym" still leaves us wondering, though.

*Wook Jae, I'm sorry

Please select an artwork you wish to appreciate

The next day we get the full dose of modern Art: First up we visit the MMCA Seoul, which has a great permanent exhibition with huge, space-filling installations in the "Seoul Box" and the interactive "Archive of Mind", where we get to roll a ball of clay that joins a thousand other balls already part of the artwork.
Next we head to the Leeum Museum of Art after a quick detour into the Gallery Hyundai, whose collection of monochrome canvases fails to impress.
In the Samsung-sponsored museum, we are each handed a high-end smartphone as an audio guide which will magically read us something about the artwork we are standing in front of. Which gets a bit annoying after a while when you are constantly asked which artwork you would wish to appreciate when the phone is not entirely sure where you are standing. The museum showcases a wide range of modern and contemporary art alongside classical pieces and a less interesting collection of pottery.
This day full of modern art will forever be burned into my memory... Jokes aside, there were some really cool and interesting things!