Exchange Day 66 - 40 Steps and a new friend (Part 1)

Having been a hermit the past few days, I have decided that I'm not an indoor person and it's time for me to come out of my shell. (punny) (choruses of cheers and applause) I have reaffirmed my suspicions that I'm actually a flower as not getting sun is damaging to my health, literally.

I sprained my left wrist during those days in the cave, I don't even know how when I haven't been exercising. It must have been the long hours in front of the computer. Ridiculous, but true. Okay typing this on the bus is a bad idea. It sounds cool theoretically like "Hey check out my Mac beside your puny smartphones" but it's actually just making me more car sick than ever.

Breakfast was honey bread, which wasn't much to look at so there's no photo. Class didn't start till late afternoon today so I thought I'd better get some exploring done in the day. There's only two months left till exchange ends and there's no time to be a wasting. My plan was to visit the 40 Steps Cultural Street, followed by the Baeksan Memorial Hall and Busan Modern History Museum, then lastly to Bupyeong-dong where there's a Book Alley and a Porridge Alley. They were all in the vicinity so it was easy to get from one place to another. But, expectedly, I woke late and ended up leaving the room later so I only managed to strike two out of the four on my list.

Every journey has to begin with some food, so I went into a neighbourhood bakery to grab a bite. The bakery had lots of tantalising cakes and cream cheese bread but I was only there to have a small snack so I resisted the devil's temptations and I only bought one walnut strudel. It looked much nicer than it actually tasted so I felt a little cheated but the walnuts were huge.

I think it was around the size of a 30cm ruler, this is only half of it! 2000W!

Armed with brunch, I began my search for the 40 Steps Cultural Street. According to the Internet, you can get there by taking the subway to Jungang Station on Line 2 and getting out at either Exit 11 or 13. Nearer to Exit 13, you'll see this giant billboard on the 40 Steps Street and after that there'll be small signs to guide you along the way.

The signs were quite helpful in leading me to the bakery but I was lost as to where the themed streets were. I never did find them in the end, or maybe I did but I just didn't realise it. Instead, I went to the 40 Steps Cultural Center, which is sort of like a museum dedicated to the 40 Steps Street.

As you walk straight ahead, after turning left at the giant billboard, you'll see a star-studded spiral pathway (no stairs) that stands out amidst the boring buildings. Walk up the pathway and you reach the doors of the 40 Steps Cultural Center.

Can you see the Cultural Center at the top of the photo?

The Cultural Center has a total of six floors, but only 6F and 5F are dedicated to the 40 Steps Street. I took the lift up and started exploring from 5F. Although both floors are about the 40 Steps Street, they are different in the scope of their exhibitions. 5F shows you more about the general history of the 40 Steps whereas 6F gives you an insight into the lives of the people who lived there.

The lift takes you straight into the exhibition itself and at the entrance of the exhibition, you can find information brochures about the Center and the exhibits. I love how museum curators are mostly old people and you can feel how passionate they are in wanting to share their extensive knowledge with you. When I was there, a friendly grandpa was on duty and he looked really excited to see a foreign tourist. He could speak a teeny weeny bit of English, so we made little conversation and he attempted to explain to me some of the exhibits. If you know Korean, he provides guided tours in Korean.

These are the kinds of ration foods the people ate during the War. The packets on the left are the westernised ration foods, probably given by the American soldiers and the bowls on the right are types of porridge and soup. This is probably why porridge is considered as the oldest traditional food in Korea.

Tools used for clean water.

The grandpa told me that in those times, schools were destroyed, so the people had to study in outdoor classrooms, which were basically plots of open land with tables and chairs. It's really inspiring how hard the people back then studied despite poor conditions, and yet look at us now in our comfortable school buildings.

What the people turned to for entertainment during the War.

Culture during the War.

Transistor radios and cigarettes.

(top) Calligraphy books, paints. (bottom) Reading glasses, oil painting.

The place isn't very big but if you take time to look at each exhibit, it'll probably take you a good fifteen minutes to explore the entire floor.

6F was comparatively smaller, but interested me more as the items on exhibit were everyday stuff that people used back then and were more relatable than general history. Looking at these stuff, I could imagine myself as one of the people who lived in the past.

The entire gallery was just the area that surrounded this beam. Really small.

A photograph of child concubines, I wonder how old the King was and if this marked the start of paedophilia.

Coin currencies that were used in the past.

Designs of Lotte gum wrappers that changed over the years.

I think this gum was designed to resemble a bug. Why would I want a chewy bug oh my god it looks like something out of Hogsmeade.

The currencies on the left are closest in appearance to the modern Korean currency.

Regardless of nationality, girls played with paper dolls.

This is an example of a board game that was played during the War time.

Outside the exhibition area of 6F, there were clay models and bronze sculptures of residents in action and also an outdoor gallery, which was just an excuse for smoking.

I left the the Center in search of the 40 Steps, which was after all the main point why I was even here in the first place. How can I know about its history without even seeing the place with my own eyes? But the streets around the Center all looked pretty boring and ordinary, so I gave up the search very quickly.

It was pure luck that when I was about to leave, I saw this bunch of tourists gathering around a rock and furiously snapping away. The rock turned out to be the landmark of the 40 Steps and as a tourist myself, I of course couldn't resist taking a few pictures of my own.

The interesting part was that there was a man at the bottom of the stairs, handing out free candy to whoever sits there and chats with him. As a kiasee Singaporean, I flinched and ran away abashedly when he gestured me to sit down at the table. But then again Singaporeans are also highly kaypo, so I stood in the middle of the stairs watching and observing each and every passerby that talked to him, and I came to the conclusion that he wasn't trying to sell me anything. He was just being friendly.

So I plucked up my courage and activated every single YOLO cell in me, and I went straight ahead to say hello and ask if I could sit down too. Thankfully he didn't diss me for fleeing previously and he welcomed me warmly with a piece of malted candy that he was generously giving out to everyone.

He makes the malted candy from scratch using his simple tools and tiny metal pot. It's like an open concept kitchen.

My candy! He didn't ask me what shape I wanted, but just as well, this is a daffodil. :)

The point of this malted candy was that he would imprint a shape in the middle of the candy using a cookie cutter, while the candy was still soft, and when the candy hardened, you could try to get the shape out using needles that he provides. I failed.

The man couldn't speak English well, so we conversed mostly in Korean. I used whatever broken Korean I had and he attempted to explain some of the more complicated questions in bits of English. On a side note, I'm really proud of myself for daring to and trying to speak Korean with locals. He was really easy to talk to and he asked about my dream and what I would like to do in the future. I told him that my dream was always to be a singer and he delightedly asked me to sing a song. And I did.

I thought I would be really shy but I'm glad I put myself out there and it has been so long since I could legitimately sing my heart out, so I'm really happy I did it. I sang him a Korean song and I'm glad he and the two other ladies who were also sitting there liked it. One of the ladies managed to get out her shaped candy perfectly, and she gave it to me. (touched)

This experience has made me closer to stepping out of my comfort zone, which was what I wanted to achieve from this exchange and I highly recommend everyone who's going to go or currently on exchange to do something like this that you would probably never do back home. As long as it's not illegal or harmful, I think that we should always try new things because we never know what these experiences might bring us and we wouldn't want to live with regrets.

xoxo, ❀