Seoulscapade

My honeymoon was my second European trip, but this time it was to Paris, Dublin, London and back to Paris. The last time I went, the Internet did not exist for the general public, but this time I was able to book hotels and flights online. There were no problems. October was a good time to be there, with mostly decent weather and fewer tourists.

I should confess, the trip was designed to follow a kind of literary trail. In Paris, I made a point of visiting some Samuel Beckett landmarks, such as the one featured below. It’s Beckett’s long term home in Paris, 38 Boulevard St. Jacques, after he moved from Rue des Favorites (which I also visited); he lived on the 7th floor. Don’t worry, I ensured that my new wife, Sunah, didn’t miss out on seeing all of the standard tourist spots as well. We got everything done without too much rushing around, too. We were organized and kept busy enough not to have the energy for newly wed arguments.

Europe seemed much the same as it was 20 years ago, except more expensive, of course. One difference I noticed in Paris, however, was that the French were more inclined to speak English and seemed more tolerant of tourists. You have to admire that, what with the huge volume of tourists they have to put up with. I suspect things are different in peak season, when the tension between desiring to please to make money and loathing to accommodate petulant and demanding foreigners is at its zenith. I also noticed that more immigrants were working in service jobs or else running businesses.

Paris has always been multicultural, but multiculturalism in Dublin was something I didn’t expected. I had not been to Dublin before, and I guess I was anticipating something like a modern version of the city described in famous Irish literature from the last century. Sure, some of the landmarks were still there, but I didn’t hear much of the Irish accent walking down the streets. From what I gathered while there, the influx of immigrants is changing the face of Ireland; that seemed pretty evident. Poles especially are swelling the population, though they are not as readily accepted as harder working Asians, going on what a taxi driver said.

As for Dublin itself, I was somewhat underwelmed, although this impression is probably tainted by the literary focus I had. It is a bit touristy, nonetheless. A good example of this is the misleadingly named Guinness Brewery Tour. On the ‘tour,’ a self-guided affair, you will not see anything of the real Guinness brewing and bottling process. You just get funnelled to a merchandise shop, up various floors of memorabilia, panels, lights and noises, and end up at bar with a view of Dublin and a free pint of Guinness. The view and the pint are good, you can skip the rest.

They flog their literary heritage even though so many of their dead writers were ostracized while alive. Yet there is just not that much literary ‘stuff’ to see. There are house addresses you can visit, although I didn’t bother—I’d seen the main addresses I wanted to see in Paris. In any case, the most well known address would be Joyce’s 7 Eccle’s Street but there’s a hospital where it once stood. Actually, we stayed in a hotel that had been converted from a residence where George Bernard Shaw once lived, the Harcourt.

I enjoyed seeing a few other literary landmarks like Trinity College and Swift’s St. Patrick’s and venturing to Joyce’s Martello Tower in Sandycove, Dun Laoghaire. We also went on the convenient city bus tour—the best way to see things fast, walked along streets I’d heard of, and strolled through Stephen’s Green. There wasn’t time to do the literary pub tour, which might have been fun. I suspect, however, that we might have just seen a lot of other tourists. Since they banned smoking in pubs, business has dropped off. We did get to the writer’s museum, but it was a waste of time; you can read about the lives of Irish writers off a wall and view some old editions in glass cases—I mean, so what; you’d be just as enlightened surfing the Internet.

Had we the time, it would have been nice to tour more of the coast and inland country, like the Wicklow region, and see the rural side of Ireland. That might have given me the feeling that I would like to go back. As a last word, the friendliness of the Irish could not be faulted.

The next leg of the journey was from Dublin to London. In London, we took a city tour bus and then a Thames river cruise on the day we arrived. On the next day we headed off to meet my brother on the outskirts of London, and he drove us to Reading University, where I looked over some Beckett archives. Then it was on to Oxford to spend the afternoon with his family and have a quick look around before taking a train back to London. The next morning we took a flight back to Paris and returned to the hotel we’d initially stayed in, the Hotel Ares Eiffel. If anyone wants a basic, decently priced, well located hotel in Paris, this is it.

The return to Paris was purely for relax time, with the majority of the sightseeing out of the way. As the end approached, I didn’t really want to come back; I was starting to feel quite comfortable in Europe, or perhaps it was that I didn’t want the traveling to end so soon.

But I won’t miss the European cost of living, that’s for sure; and I won’t miss the transport systems, either: whoever designed the knee space for strangers opposite each other on Dublin’s trains should be sacked; Charles de Gaule was a dump compared to Korea’s Incheon International; London’s subway is clunky and Paris’ is quaint and petite compared to Seoul’s efficient, clean, heavy duty system. Seoul traffic, however, is another matter entirely.

In many respects, people who haven’t lived in Seoul don’t know what their missing; and getting away from Seoul showed me why I still like living here. Now I’m back, life is back to normal, well, except that I’m married.