A City of Beauty and Culture

In March, I was excited to check out the Cherry Blossom festival in Youido, an island in the middle of the Han River in Seoul. I was dissuaded from going during the festival as it would be too crowded, but I was determined to go anyway. As fate would have it, I ended up being too sick to go during the festival and had to wait until after it to go. Son Mi, Jae Jin and I went on the Sunday after the festival was over. It was a beautiful warm sunny afternoon and the trees were covered in delicate white flowers bruised with pink blushes. It was a sight to see (click on the Kodak Gallery link to see more pictures). It was a wonderful day followed by a delicious lunch a 20 minute walk away.

Seoul is a humongous city chock full of cultural stimulation, if you know where to look. Unfortunately, I often miss the opportunities because the tickets are sold out or I’ve found out too late.

But I have been lucky enough to catch a few awesome things. Here they are:

Thanks to Jong In, one of the close friends I’ve made here, I was told about a Rene Magritte exhibit in downtown Seoul. I knew of Magritte because of the famous bowler hat paintings he had made. I was excited to see what else he had to offer. There was a lot. What an amazing man; so much symbolism in his art and the mixture of surrealism and symbolism reminded me of Dali’s work (which I had seen much of outside of Barcelona back in 2005). It was totally worth the trip.

Just a few days later I had the chance to see the Cirque du Soleil in all of its glory. I remember thinking to myself that it was funny that I had lived in Montreal for over 3 years, just steps away from the original Cirque, only to watch it for the first time half way around the world. The production was called Quidam, a wonderful mix of fantasy fit for children, comedy that was international in its humor, and acrobatics that left my mouth open in amazement. The beauty of Cirque du Soleil is the fact that there are no words and therefore no need to translate or adapt the shows to the different cultures. If any of you have the opportunity to see any of the Cirque du Soleil productions, I highly recommend it.

On June 24th, I went with Jong In and Son Mi to see a Korean musical. It is called Subway Line Number 1. It is the longest running musical in South Korea, having existed for about 15 years. Twice a week they have the show subtitled in English so we went on a Sunday evening. The show is actually a rock musical and you could see the musicians behind translucent screens in the background as the actors and singers performed for us. It was an awesome show and I’m glad that I saw it after I had been here for a while. I think it would have been a mistake to see it right away as I would have missed a lot of the subtleties of the humor in reference to the Korean culture. As it was, I laughed quite a bit and it was really cool. It ran a bit long, but I would definitely recommend it.

Last weekend I went to see the Orsay exhibit. Though I lived in France for three years and had been to the Louvre, I hadn’t had the opportunity to go to the Orsay museum in Paris. So, it came to me here! There were fewer paintings than I had expected, but the paintings that were there were definitely worth it. There were paintings from Van Gogh, Manet and Monet, but the best part was my discovery of some new artists. I fell in love with some of the paintings by Albert Bartholome (Dans la Serre), James Tissot ( Le Bal), Henri-Edmond Cross (L’air du soir), Paul Signac (Femmes au Puits) and Odilon Redon (Portrait d’Ari Redon au Col Marin). The colors and the pointillism movement which I had heard about but had yet to see live, were breaths of fresh air that I had badly needed. Check these out when you get a chance and let me know your own thoughts.