We’re here. In Seoul. A very long flight was hugely improved by our being upgraded to First Class no less. Long story.
An hour long bus journey in Seoul dropped us off within a five minute walk of our guest house. Forty five minutes later we found it, having been misdirected by a night watchman, a housewife and a schoolgirl, before finally happening upon two English-speaking students who used an app to find our address.
Which is a traditional Hanok house – wooden, mattresses on the floor – very cosy. More tomorrow. Off to bed. I’ve had no sleep for forty hours.
We’re still being tourists in London. British Museum today, passing a Korean caff on the way. Korean is the second language on museum signage, Korean Airways sponsors the audio-guides, and we visited the Korean gallery. But this is what caught our eye.
Javanese shadow puppets. I’ve always liked them. Today though, I left warriors and gods aside, in favour of Sammy, Wayang hip-hop puppet. Isn’t he fine?
Here we are in London on the first leg of our journey to South Korea. But really, why bother? Look what I found being given away at Charing Cross Station this morning. Free Korean newspapers. The adverts in them reveal that all Korean life is here in London.
Marmite: all ready to slather on hot buttered toast (Wikimedia Commons)
We’re almost packed for Korea. We’ve remembered to pack the Marmite for Emily.
My friend Penny’s packed and left for France, where she’s staying at Maison Grillou with Kalba, happily exiled from England. She’s remembered to pack the Marmite too. Two jars – large.
What is it about us Brits? We can live abroad for years and years, and learn to do without Proper Tea (very easy for me, that one), baked beans on toast (even easier), and Bird’s custard powder (easier still). But deprive us of our Marmite, and we go into a steady decline. It’s not as if we all like it. Marmite themselves never try to convert anyone in their advertising. They know full well we either love it or loathe it, and there’s no point whatsoever in trying to persuade a Marmite-hater to give it another go.
Marmite-Wars.
What is clear though is that you do have to be British to love it. I’ve never spoken to anyone born outside the UK who could understand our love for this peculiar, salty yeast extract, a by-product of the brewing industry.
What’s your take on it? Incredibly, there’s even a board game to help you decide. I don’t need to play. I love it.
Here in England, we’ve got a bit of a thing about images of a white horse cut into the hillside. There are well over 20 of them, from the South Downs to Wiltshire, via Leicestershire and even as far north as Tyneside. We like to think many of them are pretty ancient, like this one, the Uffington White Horse, first carved into the hillside chalk of Oxfordshire: probably in the Iron Age, possibly as long ago as 800 BC. But they’re not. Most of them date from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
Uffington White Horse (Wikimedia Commons)
We’ve got our own white horse here in North Yorkshire, near Kilburn. It’s really rather modern. Back in 1857, a Kilburn-born man, Thomas Taylor, who’d become a provision merchant down in London thought that his home village should have its very own version of the Uffington White Horse. He got John Hodgson, who was the local schoolmaster, together with the schoolchildren and a band of volunteers to cut a horse shape from the turf to reveal the sandstone beneath. Six tons of lime were used to whiten the image, which can be seen from many vantage points in North Yorkshire, and on a clear day, from as far away as Leeds, 45 miles away, and even North Lincolnshire.
Kilburn White Horse (Wikimedia Commons)
And that’s where we went yesterday for an energetic nine mile walk. Our path took us along scenic Beacon Banks. Once it had a beacon at its summit to alert the country when danger threatened. It warned of the approach of the Spanish Armada in 1588. It was a watching point for the Home Guard during World War II. Now it’s simply a lovely place from which to survey the countryside. Our route took us past three of the prettiest villages in this part of the world – Coxwold, Husthwaite and Kilburn – through woodland, through farmland with views across to the Vale of York, the Hambleton Hills and North York Moors, passing ancient Norman churches we couldn’t call into because it was Sunday. And the White Horse – often there as a backdrop to the scenery. Here are some picture postcards of our day.
Our trip to Korea is getting closer. We’ve got pretty good at reading individual characters in hangul, but it’s not doing us much good. I can see when it’s pointed out to me that 부산 is Busan, the city where Emily lives, but I can’t decode it all by myself. Hey ho.
So now we’re busy learning Useful Phrases. This is proving so hard that we’re keeping the list to the minimum.
Will these get us by, do you think?
Hello: 안녕하세요 – annyeonghaseyo.
Goodbye: 안녕히 가세요 – annyeonghi kaseyo
Yes: 네 -Ne (how confusing…..)
No: 아니오 – anio
Please: 그렇세요 – kureoseyo
Thank you: 감사합니다 – kamsahamnida.
Bon appetit! 잘 먹겠습니다 – jal meokkesseumnida
Thank you for the meal: 잘 먹었습니다 – jal meogeosseumnida
What have we left out? This is the most basic list remember, just to try to remain polite. We’ve abandoned all thoughts of real communication. And even this little list is taxing our poor brains. I’m sure we’ll be fine …….
Here we go again. Apparently WordPress doesn’t support my sort of smartphone, so I have to post via email. This is my first attempt. Fingers crossed. I think I feel rather like these people battling along the river Ure this afternoon against the current. It’s all a bit of a struggle.
We’re more than half way through August. It ought to be high summer, but autumn’s on its way. As we walked down the road yesterday, a few crisp brown leaves blew across our path. Mornings start later, night comes sooner. The combine harvesters trundling round the fields seem almost to have completed their work. The shops are full of neat school uniforms and bright pencil cases ready for the new academic year.
Before it’s too late, here are some summer time views, from Moelfre in Anglesey. And because it’s British Summer time, the sea isn’t always blue and nor is the sky. But that’s fine: we expect that here in the UK.
Our road from Church Stretton to the start of our Shropshire walk.
Shropshire’s one of England’s forgotten counties, and full of secret landscapes for the lucky traveller to discover. We found a few ourselves this week, when visiting ex-Riponian friends Hatti and Paul.
Here’s our route, as shown on the OS map.
They took us on a walk along one of those characteristic long, narrow scenic ridges which offer easy walking, and wonderful long distance views to east and to west. So there we were, rambling from Wentnor to Bridges along the ridge for a rather good pub lunch, and then back to Wentnor along the valley floor.
To the right of us was the Long Mynd, a gently sloping plateau. To the left, and higher above us were the more rugged Stiperstones. Both hillsides were covered with an intensely purple carpet of flowering heather.
You’ll want to know how the ridge of Stiperstones came to be covered with an untidy tumbling of large and rugged boulders.
The Devil’s Chair (Wikimedia Commons)
It was the devil who dropped them there. He’d once noticed an old crone carrying her eggs to market by holding them before her, nursing them in her apron. That was the way to do it! That was how he carried a large bundle of rocks all the way from Ireland to Shropshire, where he planned to drop them in the valley called Hell’s Gutter. It was heavy work, and he sat for a rest at the very top of Stiperstones on a rock known since that day as the Devil’s Chair.
As he stood up again, his apron strings snapped. Out those rocks tumbled, all over the ridge. He didn’t bother to pick them up. They’re there to this day.
Look carefully, there on the skyline are the devil’s carelessly-lost rocks.
Climatologists and geologists have a different explanation, more credible but less fun. If you get the chance, go to Shropshire, savour its varied and delightful landscape, and decide for yourself.
Wales is only along just to the left of England. We don’t need a passport to get here. And I’ve visited quite often. But until this time, never been so aware of the Welsh language. It’s not just that all signage comes first in Welsh, then English. But people – ordinary, everyday sort of people speak it – all the time. I hadn’t really realised that this is a living language, a day-to-day reality for many many people, and not one simply preserved by well-meaning traditionalists and academics, in the way that Occitan seems to be encouraged in parts of France and elsewhere. I wish I could understand more than ‘dim parcio’ (‘no parking’).
Hir fyw y gwahaniaeth. (‘Vive la difference!’ to you. And you can’t say that in English, either)
Even Waitrose supermarket says it in Welsh before English.
Of course this isn’t written on my smartphone. I tried. I’m allowed to comment on other WP bloggers’ posts by being logged into my account, but if I try to post myself, it continues to say I can’t be verified. Oh grrr.
We’re still being tourists in London. British Museum today, passing a Korean caff on the way. Korean is the second language on museum signage, Korean Airways sponsors the audio-guides, and we visited the Korean gallery. But this is what caught our eye.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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