This week I had an unexpected visit from one of my favorite people. KG called me on Monday and let me know he had bought tickets and would be in Seoul to visit me on Tuesday. It was really great to see him, and we had a fun time (though I guess I should speak only for myself). Still didn’t get out of Seoul, but we wandered into at least a few areas I hadn’t been before. One of the things we did was to pay a visit to the famous Changdeok Palace and its “Secret Garden” with some of my colleagues, and I managed to take some of the prettiest photos I’ve yet taken in Seoul.

One of the main palace buildings. All palaces and old city gates, etc. in Korea have the same elaborate paint job, and I’ve now learned that it’s based on Buddhist imagery with the lotus flower and something about clouds and water and earth and whatnot.

One of the most peaceful spots in all of Seoul (can it really be called part of Seoul - isn’t it a different place entirely?). This is where they used to take the infamous civil service examinations back in the day. The people administering the test would sit in this pavilion, and if you looked out the other side you would see a wide expanse of gravel, which is where the examinees were. The royals would also come here to sit and write poetry.

This is what ordinary people might have seen. A jumble of roofs and a very old tree.

With coworkers in one of the palace courtyards. Of note: the bridge behind us (the thing that has a railing) is the oldest bridge in Seoul.

Thanks for coming, K. Wish you could’ve stayed longer. Guess you’ll just have to come back again sometime, eh?

Three things from this past week:

The ultra-wholesome Columbus Day parade (done the weekend following the Columbus Day holiday, for some reason) on the ultra-wholesome slice of stereotypical Americana that is Yongsan military base. Photo taken from my yard.

One of the zillions of not-great photos taken by the audience (me among them) at the Jay-Z concert yesterday. In case you’re wondering, no photography was allowed, but that stopped absolutely nobody. It was a fun concert, even with all the cameras and mobile phones being held up above the crowd.

A reenactment of a traditional Korean wedding. Stumbled across this while wandering with a friend and colleague around one of the last teensy areas of Seoul where you can still see some small vestiges of what Korea used to be. Kneeling are the bride and groom and some other woman (the bride’s mother, perhaps?); seated above are the groom’s parents to whom the couple have just finished bowing.

Here’s why: The folks at the BBC (yes, I’ve been having an ongoing love affair with them for years now) have outdone themselves this time. They’ve done a new survey, in which they asked some 27,000 people across 25 countries around the world their ideas on torture. And when all of the responses are gathered together and averaged out, nearly a third of people (not counting the large number who for some reason couldn’t decide) readily admitted that they thought “some degree of torture” ought to be allowed.

Let that sink in for a moment: one third of people across 25 countries around the world thought that torture - torture - is okay sometimes.

People need to learn this: it is never okay. Never. Under any circumstances. Ever. I don’t care what information the other person might be thought to have, but no matter what it is, it’s not worth it. Are we next going to allow people to torture the 17-year old whom we suspect of plotting to bring a gun to school and shoot 30 of his classmates in the same way that many seem ready to allow the torture of another 17-year old whom we suspect of plotting to blow himself up and kill 30 people on a bus? “Some degree” or not, torture is not now and never will be okay. Period. It makes me incredibly sad and not a little frightened that we’ve come to a point at which we feel the need to ask questions like this.  How in the world can we even justify a debate on this issue?!?

Today, after all of the visas were done, I headed over to Habib House, the official residence of the U.S. ambassador to Korea, for a reception in honor of Christine Gregoire, Washington’s governor. Naively, I never imagined the event would be as crowded as it was. The place was so crowded it was often difficult to move more than one or two steps without being jostled by someone, let alone get across a whole room.

The Governor has been here for the better part of a week with a sizeable group of people to promote trade and educational opportunities. There were people at the reception from all sorts of businesses based in Washington, from Microsoft, Boeing and the Port of Seattle down to small start-ups looking for trade partners in Asia. The president of the University of Washington and people from several community and technical colleges were there too. I think I nearly broke the heart of a gal from one of the technical colleges when I told her honestly that, of the hundreds of student visa applications I’ve looked at over the past few months, I could probably count on one hand the number of them asking to go to Washington.

Of course, contacts were being made left and right tonight, and there were plenty of people who were there to do just that. Out of the maybe 250 people there, probably around 150 were Koreans (many of them U-Dub alums) who were interested in making contacts and setting up deals.

And then there were the diplomats. What do we do? We talk. And we say, “Wow, that’s really fascinating - have you met this guy over here? He does such-and-such and might be interested in . . .” That’s us: the facilitators. Except when we meet people of whom we really want to ask a question. In that case, all bets are off, and we’re out for ourselves: “Why can’t our absentee ballots be sent out early enough for us to actually vote?” or “Why does Seattle charge such high airport taxes?” Yeah, we’ll claim it’s out of concern for our own constituents, those other Americans who are living overseas, but really it’s all about us.

All that aside, though, it was a really nice evening to eat some yummy salmon for the first time in a long time and to reminisce with fellow Washingtonians about things like Dick’s and canoeing and the Cascades and Alki and trees and rain. Sigh. Sometimes I just wanna go home, if even just for a little while, airport taxes or not.

Truly Wonderful: as if I really needed another reason to want to visit London (especially since this is currently impossible for me). Now the Tate Modern has an almost irresistible art installation. I always knew I enjoyed a variety of art, but who knew it could be such good old-fashioned fun?

Would have been Wonderful: I’ll admit it, I became addicted to a television show. But it’s a good show, I swear. Some of you may have heard of Grey’s Anatomy. Here in Korea, the local AFN provider airs some of the popular shows from the U.S. just a few days or weeks or months after they originally air (timing depends on the show in question). Unfortunately, Grey’s Anatomy is not one of them. I hear from someone that the network allows free viewing on their website after each episode has aired. So tonight I try to go there and watch the first episode of the new season, and I find out that you can only watch it via the internet if you’re within the US. Seriously, people, if I was in the US, I wouldn’t need to watch it on the internet because I could watch it on TV like normal people. So frustrating.

(Yes, these are the things that I consider important enough to share with you today, a day that North Korea has apparently increased the tension even further by “threatening war,” though I’m not sure how accurate a characterization that is. Yes, I’m concerned about this situation. No, I can’t do a single thing about it. And since I’m also not an expert on any facet of it, I can’t claim to have any authoritative opinions anyway. Thus, I’m pursuing other diversions.)

Sometimes it’s nice to be working in the consular section of the embassy. Particularly on days like today, when embassy employees are meant to have the day off to celebrate an official American holiday and something big happens.

You see, consular officers are kind of in a league of their own within the embassy. For instance, in pretty much any other section of an embassy, people not only know what is going on in the world, but they pay close attention to it because their work is closely associated with it. In the consular section, on the other hand, I can go for days or even weeks without reading, hearing or watching a news report. In fact, even when something significant does happen either on the Korean peninsula or elsewhere, we are often the very last to hear about it. Our duties are just not terribly significant on a geopolitical level (though they are certainly significant in terms of maintaining good “on-the-ground” relations between the U.S. and the host country). We don’t make much of a mark in ways that would lead to a newspaper headline like those in some other sections of the embassy might make, and consular assignments are often, rightly or wrongly, looked upon as unimportant.

This dichotomy is generally seen as unfavorable to those serving in the consular section of an embassy. I can say from personal experience that some days it certainly feels that way - it can be a trying experience sometimes. Today, however, is one of the rare days that I’m decidedly grateful to be in the consular section. I have been able to spend this Columbus Day holiday as I wished, rather than being called in to work and spending all day on the phone with people out in Washington DC trying to find out what they want us to say or do about the latest news coming out of North Korea. I’ve had that kind of job, and I’ll have it again, but today I’m glad to be a “lowly” consular officer.

What would you do if you had a five-day weekend? Take a trip somewhere, perhaps? Re-landscape the yard? Remodel a room in your house? Spend a few days shopping and a few getting spa treatments? All great ideas. What did I do? Well, I basically just stayed home. With one day of the five left to go (during which I of course plan to accomplish a great deal), here are my accomplishments on this lovely weekend granted by the serendipity of consecutive Korean and American holidays:

• Caught a cold
• Spent a half day (facilitated by decongestants) wandering around one of Seoul’s ritzy districts with my visiting friend and another friend who lives here, finishing off the evening at a very good Italian restaurant
• Successfully saw my friend off at the airport
• Found and bought kleenex
• Hung pictures
• Did laundry and dishes
• Pruned some bushes in the yard
• Organized (most of) my files
• Finished unpacking the boxes that were delivered a week and a half ago
• Put some stuff in those empty curio cabinets (oddly, they still seem rather empty)
• Vacuumed the majority of the house
• Hunted (unsuccessfully so far) for my address book
• Watched more than my fair share of bad television
• Read part of a book
• Completely screwed up my sleep schedule

Pretty dismal, eh? I guess that’s what happens when there are absolutely no tickets available to leave the country and one makes an almost-conscious decision to have a lazy few days. But I’m almost completely over the cold now, so here’s hoping that tomorrow is an incredibly productive day. Maybe I’ll even leave my own couple hundred square meters of house and yard and head out to the grocery store 2 or 3 blocks away. . .

I’ve had a friend in town this week. A few of these photos were taken by her, a few by me. They are all typical street scenes one might see in a day of wandering around Seoul. Hope you enjoy! (Mouse over the photos to see the captions).