"Sick" Day

On Friday I called in sick...cough, cough, cough. I decided that it was the perfect day seeing as it was about halfway between our last holiday, (way back in September) and our next holiday, Christmas. So early on Friday morning I called in complaining that I had been up all night vomiting and having diarrhea, probably due some uncooked "sam-gyup-sal" that I had the night before. This was, unbeknownst to me, the exact excuse that had been used by the other foreigners at my school in the last six months. Well Colleen apparently bought my story because right after speaking to her I fell back asleep without a shred of guilt on my conscience. I awoke at a decadent and delicious hour of 12:30 in the afternoon. I opened my Lonely Planet guide to Seoul to see what my day off would bring. I decided on Deoksugung palace despite warnings from the book and by word of mouth that it was the most inferior of the Seoul palaces. I chose it anyway because of its proximity to the National Museum of Korea. I figured at the time that I would kill two birds of culture with one stone.
I took the subway to City Hall and paid my 1,000 won, roughly $1 entrance to the palace. I grabbed the brochure and proceeded on my self-guided tour of the many small buildings that had once been inhabited by king Gojang of the Joseon dynasty. Although the majority of the buildings had been destroyed by the Great Fire of 1904, they have since been reconstructed but the buildings are empty, cavernous and cold. The ornately painted eves of the traditional upturned rooves were the sole sign that these were in fact royal dwellings rather than ordinary log cabins.
Included in the bargain price was admission to the Royal Museum in which I was able to behold an assortment of "two-tiered chest", "eyeglass case" and "traditional clothings" belonging to the royal family and members of the royal military.
Not included in the initial fee was entry to the National Museum of Contemporary Art (annexe). This is not to be mistaken with the actual National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul Grand Park which I have also visited and will be further discussed in a reflections part of this blog. The annexe was playing host to a traveling exhibit on "Cubism in Asia". The exhibit showcased pieces from a variety of artists from India, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, China, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and Sri Lanka from the 1920's to the 1960's.
With Pablo Picasso leading my knowledge of Cubism I paid my $3 and entered the musueum. After a while I ascended to the second story with a pretty well-established idea of which pieces I would and would not steal off the walls in order to decorate my dream home, but I continued on anyway. My time spent in Korea has given me an extrasensory perception of any foreigner (read: white person) within my surroundings and hence was quick to notice the potentially attractive foreigner enjoying a cup of coffee at a nearby table. I plotted my route through the exhibition halls with the idea that I would enter one way and leave another so as to pass by his table to say 'hello'. Soon after following said route I found myself cursing my entire race/generation for being so unfriendly and conservative seeing as the foreigner neither took an active interest in returning my greeting nor did he offer me a bite of his delicious looking coffee cake.
After deciding I had just about had my day's fill of Asian cubism, history and culture altogether, I went downstairs to recap my favorite pieces. I was crossing the main entryway when I saw the aforementioned foreigner coming towards me and heading in the opposite direction. He must have realized what a mistake he made earlier because this time he was much more personable and offered me a smile AND a "hello".
I left the museum and parked myself on a bench half hoping and half expecting him to pass by and stop to talk to me. I sat absorbing the surreality of being in the grounds of a 16th century palace in the heart of metropolitan Seoul for a couple of minutes. I sat facing a fountain with the sun warming my face and the sound of a 'plunky' traditional Korean stringed instrument coming from the speakers and filling my ears. Just when I started to think that maybe I should look around to see if there were movie cameras watching me I saw the mystery foreigner walking towards me while fumbling with a laughably oversized map. He asked me if I knew my way around "Sool". I could tell instantly, by his mispronunciation of 'Seoul', that he was a true foreigner even by the standards of an American in Korea. He sat down next to me and we exchanged the requisite niceties and basic information. It was enough for me to learn that he was from Switzerland, he is an employed engineer exploring Seoul after spending two weeks doing business with Hyundai in the Southern city of Ulsan. Anyway, after some casual conversation we found a nearby church and were married. You may send best wishes, (since gifts aren't necessary due to his financial status) to:
Mr. and Mrs. Ivan
613 St. Bernard Way
Geneva, Switzerland 12345

I will never see him again. He left the following day for his homeland but not after getting a cup of tea, dinner and drinks and a couple of hours of good conversation out of him. He was just another chapter in my not-in-progress book called "My Life is a Movie". Realistically though, who meets a tall, dirty-blonde-haired, blue-eyed and handsome Swiss man at an art museum in Korea?
Well, I suppose it's time to come back from never Neverland because today is just another day in Wonderland.