Adventures in JHJ country (2)

The church in "Love Letter"

Interior of church

Yonsei University

The bend

Today (5/3/09) is Sunday, so we went to church in the morning. Please note I wrote: "we went to church", not "we went to mass", even though we are both Catholics. Our plan this morning was to go to Junglin-dong Yakhyun Catholic Church, you know, the church in "Love Letter" where Andrea is ordained as a priest in the very first scene of the drama. By the time we arrived at 10:30 a.m., I guess mass was over. We saw a layman leaving with the prayer books. The church was empty except for a single worshipper. We went in and said a prayer (for our families and JHJ.) We admired the stained glass windows and (secretly) took a couple of photos.

Then we went out and walked around the grounds. I was last here in August 2008 (after seeing JHJ off to join the army), and everything was as beautiful and serene as I remember them. This very elegant church, built with bricks, is just 32m. long, 12m. wide and has a 22m. high bell tower. It has no complicated ornamentation but it evokes a feeling of solemnity, and has become the model for Korean church construction. Some information on Junglin-dong Yakhyun Catholic Church: Designation: Historic site no. 252. Period: Joseon Dynasty 1892. This is the first western-style cathedral to be built in Korea. "Yakhyun" is the name of the hill between Malli-dong and Seoul Railroad Station. Long ago the area was covered with fields of medicinal herbs, "yakhyun" meaning "full of medicinal herb fields", hence the name of the church.

Next we went to Yonsei University where the Korea Fan Meeting was held on July 19, 2008. Yonsei is one of the top three universities in Korea, known as SKY, the other two being Seoul University and Korea University. Yonsei was established in 1885 and is currently celebrating its 124th anniversary. The slogan "the first and the best" is everywhere on campus. Yonsei University is the setting for that part of "Love Letter" when the three lead characters are enrolled at university. We walked for more then an hour on the big and beautiful campus, very green and red/pink (trees and flowers.) We recalled those scenes between Andrea and Eun Ha, and between Andrea and Woo Jing, and especially that heart-rending scene when Andrea was going to give Eun Ha a bouquet of flowers, only to see she's already holding the flowers that Woo Jing had given her, and they're going to a concert together. This happened on that now famous road with a bend (Photo 4) which looked prettier than in the TV series because of the trees and flowers in bloom. It's a minor miracle that I who have no sense of direction managed to locate that place to show M.

In the afternoon we went to Myeong Dong again. M had been trying to get the OST of "Love Letter", "Forbidden Love" and "Sunshine". We went into every CD/DVD shop we could find, without any luck until we hit upon this little shop on the way to the metro station. The very knowledgeable shop assistant dug out "Forbidden Love". One look at the price and M screamed: "80,000 KW???!!!" (around US$65) The average CD is less than 15,000 KW. The man said "Very rare!" (in English.) I could read the conflict in M's mind -- "To buy or not to buy?" 80,000 KW is an exorbitant price, but of course everything is supply and demand. The "Forbidden Love" OST is not available anywhere, and this could be the last copy in circulation. "Very rare!" the man reiterated, and M capitulated. She knew she would regret it if she didn't get it. At least now it's her pocketbook that's hurting and not her heart.

After doing a little work at the hotel, we went out for dinner -- to Cheongdam-dong, the most upmarket entertainment area South of the Han River. The restaurant Queen's Park was recommended by a friend of mine who's working in Seoul. It's one of his favourite restaurants that serves casual Western food. As soon as I sat down, a pretty waitress brought a footstool and set it beside me. "For your handbag." Interesting! The food was excellent -- it was supposed to be a 4-course dinner but we were served 5 courses because they made a little mistake about the entree and gave us an extra salad as compensation. M was so pleased with the food that she wanted to see the chef. I reminded her she's not Han Yi Joon, so instead we just paid our compliments to the chef whom we discovered was Korean. We suddenly came up with a brilliant idea -- wouldn't it be great if we could hold a private birthday party for Hyun-Jae here? The restaurant is not too big, and it has a warm and cozy ambience. Dream on.....After we left the restaurant, we could not get a taxi. We saw the road was lined with Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, Porsche, Audi, etc. -- all expensive European cars. Nobody came in a taxi except us. We had to walk all the way back to the main road before we could flag down a taxi. We were very surprised that the taxi fare back to the hotel was one-third less than the fare to the restaurant. We checked with the Concierge and found out those black taxis parked in front of hotels cost more than the silver-grey ones on the streets. Well, it's fitting that when you go to an expensive restaurant, you take an expensive taxi, right?

We'll try to retire early tonight, that is, before 12. We attempted too much last night and ended up with panda eyes today. Good thing we are mirror images of one another so we can't tease one another about it.