Category Archives: Travel

Gordonsville

This weekend’s story actually began last weekend when my friend Katherine and I took a day trip to visit The Market at Grelen, a garden shop, café, and event venue in picturesque Somerset, Virginia.

After pottering around the garden shop, we went to have lunch in Gordonsville, a little town located just a fifteen minute drive away.

Gordonsville has a cute downtown. Main Street is lined with pretty boutiques and restaurants:

We had lunch at Pomme:

…a French restaurant whose chef is the recipient of a Maîtres Cuisiniers de France, Toque d’Argent.

At this shop, which is actually called Painted at Poplar Haven, despite what the sign says:

I found this desk:

As per usual, I dithered about whether or not to buy it.

When we’d gone through all the shops, (it didn’t take long!), my friend tried to convince me to go to the Civil War Medical Museum. After she described the reenactment of a gruesome amputation she had seen when she had visited the last time, I announced that I’d rather go to the Gordonsville Street Festival instead.

The Street Festival was entertaining in its own way. There were tents for Ben Carson, pork rinds, catfish, tissue box covers, and Tupperware. One vendor was selling only cheesy, framed pictures of a blue-eyed Jesus. I couldn’t help but think of the story of a whip-cracking Jesus striding angrily into a temple and overturning tables and driving out money changers and people selling their wares…

That was last weekend. This Saturday, my family and I headed back to Gordonsville to buy the desk I had seen. My kids, who are far more sophisticated than I, are Civil War buffs and I knew they would appreciate the museum their philistine mother had eschewed in favor of the kettle-corn, fried chicken, tchotchke extravaganza that was the Gordonsville Street Festival.

The museum is located in the Exchange Hotel, an historic building on the National Register, where well-to-do passengers traveling on one of the two lines running through Gordonsville would stay while waiting for their next train.

During the Civil War, the hotel became a Receiving Hospital for wounded soldiers from both the Confederate and Union armies.

OWWWWWWW!!!!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a graveyard full of soldiers in the field behind the hotel.

In the Reconstruction period, the hotel became a Freedman’s Bureau for newly-freed slaves. It served as a school for children by day and for adults by night, a hospital, and a courtroom.

For me the most compelling exhibit in the museum was a gallery of some of the court cases that were heard during a period of time between 1865 and 1866. The brief summaries paint vivid vignettes of heartbreak and cruelty:

It was during this period when Gordonsville became known as the “Fried Chicken Capital of the World.” Freed slave women would walk along the tracks with baskets full of fried chicken balanced on top of their heads to sell to passengers through open train windows.

Clearly up to no good.

And here’s that desk that brought me back to Gordonsville in its new home in Charlottesville.

Pink Noodle Soup

My son used to subsist on nothing but air and a few Cheerios pulled from a baggie I would tote around with me wherever we went in the hope that I could ply him with a few every now and then. Food was of absolutely no interest to him. At times, he would get so skinny he was practically transparent. When he was a toddler, his pants would sometimes fall down to his ankles as he walked. I’m not exaggerating when I say that as an anxious first-time mother, I would sometimes weep over my child’s unwillingness to eat. Just when I had finally resigned myself to the fact that he would waste away on his meager Cheerios diet, he underwent a dramatic transformation. Suddenly, he began to devour astonishing quantities of food, the weirder and more exotic the food, the better.

Nowadays, it’s so much fun to go out to eat with my budding epicure, because he’s so much more adventurous than the rest of us. Yesterday we tried Thai Cuisine and Noodle House here in Charlottesville for the first time and while I ordered my usual boring old standby – Pad See Ew, he ordered one of the Chef’s Specials, Yen Ta Fo, or Pink Noodle Soup. I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like, and when it arrived at our table, it didn’t disappoint. We both couldn’t resist whipping out our phones to take pictures.

“I know I’m being so basic, but I can’t help myself,” my son said. “It’s going on my Instagram and I’m going to be made fun of for it, but I don’t even care.”

“Me too,” I said, busily snapping away, “This is really shameful what we’re doing and we look ridiculous, but I mean, come on! Look at it! It’s PINK!”

You can choose between wide rice noodles or bean noodles, and it comes with barbecued pork, squid rings, fish balls, some cracker like things, bok choy, green onion, and cilantro. The pink tint comes from tomato sauce added to the broth. It’s deliciously sour in a subtle, unexpected way. There were a few transparent stringy things he fished out of his bowl that he couldn’t identify, even after tasting it.

“Jellyfish?” I guessed, “Or some kind of vegetable, maybe?”

“I have no idea what it is,” he said, “But it tastes really good.”

Grounds

It was a gorgeous morning on Thursday…I hated to go inside.

Minor Hall

At lunch time I took a walk around Grounds, (not “campus”!) to check up on the restoration work going on at the Rotunda. The Rotunda is Thomas Jefferson’s temple of learning, the crowning glory of his “Academical Village,” Enlightenment ideals realized in stone.

A short walk away from the bustling construction site is another busy worksite. The lavender hedges in front of Alderman Library are in full bloom and abuzz with big fat bees:

At the end of the day I met up with this kid, who actually consented to take a photo with his embarrassing mother to commemorate these days of commuting together to work/school…

I’d call that a pretty good day.

Now on to the weekend!

The Rest of Us

Some of us are visiting stately homes…

Some of us are deciding which jaunty beret to wear today…

Some of us are wandering around in beech hedge mazes:

Some of us are in Wales visiting Castle Conwy…

and picturesque waterfalls:

Some of us are taking a leisurely tour of the Lake District:

Ambleside

And the rest of us?

Well, the rest of us are up to our usual no good…

Monticello in June

When you move to Charlottesville you are made to sign an oath in your own blood swearing to bring to Monticello any out-of-town guests who have never visited Thomas Jefferson’s house before. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve made the pilgrimage to Jefferson’s home, but I can honestly say that I learn something new every time. On this visit, I did the Garden Tour for the first time. In my own garden there is nothing but a few Monarda stems; the gardens at Monticello on the other hand, are full of color:

How do you make sure you have incredible vistas? Build your house on top of a mountain:

How do you make sure you don’t have annoying neighbors? Buy the mountain right next to your own mountain.

Montalto

How do you keep up all those tidy acres and acres of beds? Slave labor. According to our guide, Jefferson himself spent about a half hour a day working in his own gardens.

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden…But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”

Globals!

This one’s dedicated to all the friends and family members who helped my daughter and her team go to their Destination Imagination Global Tournament in Knoxville, Tennessee last week. It was a thoroughly exhausting, thoroughly wonderful week. They had the time of their lives! THANK YOU!

There were so many things my daughter got to try for the first time last week, like the human hamster ball:

Human hamster ball

Bungee banana basketball…(the expression on her face)!

Organized thuggery:

NASA was there…

I got to play astronaut too!

Buzz Aldrin was the keynote speaker at the Opening Ceremony!

Buzz Aldrin

Over 17,000 people from 17 different countries all over the world came to Knoxville for the tournament.

Pin-trading was serious business:

Next stop: the NYSE trading floor.

Registering for the Instant Challenge:

The kids were cheered on as they went to do their instant challenge:

I got to hang out with these lovely mamas all week. We waited in the wings for our little teamsters…

They were ready to cut loose after their challenge:

High five

And then it was on to the Duct Tape Ball! My girl only managed to put a few pieces of duct tape on the shirt she was wearing…(UNDER the fleece)!, but her teammates were far more enterprising:

There were some really elaborate duct tape costumes at the ball:

The next day the kids performed their main challenge. They had worked on the “Creature Feature” technical challenge for which they had to build a creature that performed actions, and to present a story featuring the creature as a character.

Once their challenge was done, they could relax!

Does this girl look like she’s having any fun at all?!

On our last night in Knoxville, we went to dinner in Market Square, where we saw this statue:

The girls wanted to say thank you…

On Saturday morning before hitting the road for the six hour drive back to Charlottesville, the kids had one more woman to thank – their wonderful, wonderful, out of all whooping DI coach:

What a week! Goodbye, Knoxville! Hope to see you again…

Last Day in Seoul

On our last day in Seoul, my sister and I took a walk to Gwanghwamun Square. It was overcast and smoggy, but there was plenty to see on our walk toward Gyeongbokgung Palace. The palace and monuments leading up to it are impressively situated with the majestic Bugaksan Mountain as a backdrop.

We walked past the 40th Anniversary Monument of Gojong’s Enthronement. Gojong (1852-1919) was the 26th king of the Joseon Dynasty, and the first emperor of Korea.

For some reason I found myself drawn to these little figures on the gate…

They reminded me of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on…and then I remembered:

“When elves go bad…” (This is my daughter as an infant, expressing her displeasure over her outlandish getup).

Admiral Yi (1545-1598) is one of Korea’s greatest heroes, a naval commander who never lost a single battle. He is famous for his victories over the Japanese navy and for improving upon a warship called the turtle ship or geobukseon:

My dad once told me long ago that we were related to Admiral Yi. Genealogy is a big deal in Korea. Many people have books listing all of their ancestors for generations among their most prized possessions. I know my family has one somewhere. Sure, there are a gazillion Kims, but are you the right kind of Kim? Certain Kim bloodlines have more cachet than others. This information is important when marriages are being considered. You wouldn’t want to marry a Kim from the same ancestral clan, for example. When I was in high school I had to do an oral presentation on our family history. When I asked my dad for some details, he casually told me that we were directly descended not only from the great Admiral Yi, but also from kings and queens of the Silla Dynasty. I was puffed with pride and my classmates were suitably impressed when I wove that fact into my presentation. It was only years later that I realized that EVERY Korean person is somehow related to some king, queen, (or illustrious admiral).

Still, I couldn’t help thinking about the fact that we were related to Admiral Yi as I walked past the exhibits on his life and accomplishments in the museum below street level, underneath his and King Sejong the Great’s statues.

The Admiral was as bad-ass as they come:

He was inventive, resourceful, and creative:

He was a poet…

And look! Great Grandpa Sun-sin loved keeping a diary – it was his most prized possession:

Later that day, with my head full of all the amazing things I had learned about my forebear, I asked my dad to remind me how exactly we were related to Admiral Yi. He told me he was his mother’s great x 17 grandfather. I waited for him to point out all of our ancestor’s excellent traits and qualities and to confirm all the connections I had made myself. Instead he said this would explain why my grandmother was “unusually large and husky” for a Korean woman.

This explains so much! 

You can just start calling me The Admiral from now on.

Just past the statue of Admiral Yi is the statue of King Sejong the Great (1397-1450), which was erected in 2009. King Sejong was an enlightened ruler, who is most famous for creating the simple, phonetic 28 letter Korean alphabet so that everyone could be literate. One of the most interesting features of this alphabet is that the shapes of the letters are meant to depict the shape of the mouth and tongue when making the sounds. Before the creation of Hangul, only the upper classes could read and write, because Korean at the time relied so heavily on the use of Chinese characters. Scholars and noblemen opposed the creation of the alphabet, fearing that it would sour relations with China and go against Confucian principles, but King Sejong persisted in working toward his vision of universal literacy:

“The language of our people is different from that of Chinese and hence cannot be expressed properly in Chinese characters. That is why there are many simple-minded people who can not express themselves even if they have things to say. Taking pity on them, I have made twenty eight letters, only hoping that all our people learn them easily and use them comfortably every day.”

I can attest to the ease of learning how to read and write Korean – my mother once taught this simple-minded person how to do it in an hour. Now if only I knew what I was reading and writing!

Past the statue of King Sejong is Gyeongbokgung Palace, built in 1395 as the main royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty. It was destroyed by the Japanese in 1592 and after being rebuilt, it was destroyed again by the Japanese in 1915. Restoration to its original form began in 1990 and is ongoing.

On the extensive grounds of the palace are several museums, including the National Folk Museum.

Korean jangseung, or totems like these were often placed at village entrances, often in male and female pairs, to ward off evil spirits, protect against disease, and to ensure a good harvest. The inscriptions are identifiers. The male figure is “Great General Under Heaven” and the female figure is “Great General of the Underworld.” Now that has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?

There was an impressive collection of stone statues of civil servants. Statues such as these are often placed to stand guard at the graves of important people.

One area of the grounds has been designed to recreate a street in the 70s. My family moved to Korea for a couple years when I was a baby in the early 70s. I was too young to remember anything about it, but I thought it might bring back memories for my sister.

She once told me that all the kids had to bring candles to school. They would wax the floors with them on their hands and knees…

The 70s recreation did spark one memory for me…I was very excited to see this poster hanging on a wall. First, check out the Korean version of Audrey Hepburn:

For as long as I can remember, my dad’s been trying to convince me to cut my hair short. He always begins his pitch by talking about how when the movie Roman Holiday came out in Korea, all the women ran out to get their hair cut like Audrey Hepburn’s!

______________________________________________________________

The next morning we headed to the airport…My mom especially wanted to make sure I got a picture of her with her brother and his hat! I love the fact that even in his seventies, he calls my mom noona, (big sister). He very solicitously made sure she didn’t have to wait in long lines like the rest of us schlubs!

I was touched to see that a whole party of people made the hour and a half drive to the airport to see my parents off:

One of the men told me that he had named his son after my grandfather and that his daughter has my mom’s name. He earned his doctorate in Systematic Theology, because my father first taught it to him. There was a lot of love for my parents in that airport. They may have never won any naval battles or sat on any thrones:

…(well, maybe just once), but they’ve lived their lives with integrity, and they’ve earned the respect and love of people on both sides of the globe. I’m proud to be their daughter.

This trip to Korea was an experience I will treasure for a lifetime, and I’m so grateful to have been able to share it with my parents and my sister.

The Great Admiral of the Underworld is signing off for now…Until next time!

Etc.

I just got back from Knoxville, Tennessee where my daughter’s Destination Imagination team was competing at the Global Finals. I had meant to finish up my Korea posts while I was there, but limited bandwidth in the dorms we were staying in, a packed schedule, and sheer exhaustion delayed things a bit…Without further ado, here is my penultimate Korea post:

The Scoop on Poop

I didn’t know it was possible to be spoiled by a toilet. It is:

After ten days of sitting on a heated seat in the Westin Chosun, regular toilets seem so cold and primitive!

Sometimes the toilets were so high tech, I couldn’t even figure out how they flushed:

The toilets weren’t always so fancy:

I’m not the only one who couldn’t figure out how the toilets worked…Because of the existence of squatter toilets such as these, you sometimes see signs like this:

On our last day in Seoul, my sister and I walked to the National Folk Museum, which also has a Children’s Museum. This was the featured exhibit:

Food, glorious food

The Spam aisle in the Lotte Department Store Grocery:

The 12th and 13th floors have nothing but restaurants:

Naengmyeon – buckwheat noodles in icy cold beef broth.
Bibim naengmyeon – noodles mixed with spicy gochujang (fermented red chili sauce) and sesame oil.
Comfort food – Mandu Gook. Dumpling Soup.

I was fascinated by the snacks…Mmmmmm, squid gristle!

I’ve never seen these in the New York City Muji stores!
Fusion cuisine – bulgogi pizza!

Shopping

The 9th floor of Lotte is Duty Free cosmetics. The place was full of people with gigantic suitcases, prepared to drop some serious change on face creams!

Exit through Star Avenue:

These pretty, pretty boys made me feel like a big ugly lumberjack every time I walked past:

Shinsegae Department Store is the grande dame of department stores:

We caught a sweet, temporary installation called Journey in a Dream on the top floor. The Australian installation artist Pip & Pop created depictions of paradise made of colored sugar and figurines she had collected in Korea:

Tomorrow: Last Day in Seoul

 

Cheong Gye Cheon Stream

The Cheong Gye Cheon Stream traverses central Seoul from West to East for about seven miles. For centuries, people gathered at the Cheong Gye Cheon to wash clothing by hand. From 1900 on shantytowns were erected along the stream. My dad recalls seeing North Korean refugees living in cardboard houses on either side during the Korean War. By 1958 the area had become such an eyesore and health hazard that the stream was covered over with concrete, and an elevated highway was eventually built over it. In 2003, a controversial $900 million, two-year restoration project was begun to remove the highway and concrete to uncover the stream once again. People complained bitterly about the disruption and the displacement of businesses caused by the construction, but today the stream is a treasured and popular landmark in Seoul.

For the month of May, it’s decorated for Buddha’s birthday: