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0:00Hello and welcome everybody to bonus episode
number 152 of the Culips English Podcast,
0:06coming to you live from scorching Seoul, South
Korea. Here I'm sitting out on my deck in a little
0:14corner of shade. It's such a beautiful day here.
The sky is blue. The sun is out. It's awesome,
0:20but it's super super hot. My phone says that
it's 33 degrees right now. And I just took a
0:27look at this little thermometer that my wife
has set up for her plants that live outside,
0:32and that is reading 48 degrees Celsius, so it's a
scorcher. I don't think it's quite 48 degrees, but
0:39it's somewhere in between 33 and 48. But it's
such a lovely day, I didn't want to sit inside
0:44and record this, so I'm outside on my deck here
for now, and we'll see how long I can last.
0:51This might be a short episode if I get too
hot and overheat and I have to run inside.
0:57Anyways, what I do here each and every week
is tell you a story from my everyday life,
1:02and I hope that by listening to my stories you
can build your English fluency. Now there's a free
1:07interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary
for this episode for everyone. You can get it
1:12just by following the link in the description for
this episode. Plus, if you're a Culips member,
1:18then you will also get a comprehension quiz. And
if you'd like to sign up and become a member and
1:23get the quiz, plus tons of other benefits
and bonuses that we give to our members,
1:28then just visit our website, Culips.com, and you
can do that. And a big thank you and a thumbs up
1:34and kudos to all of our members out there for your
support. Guys, we couldn't do Culips without you,
1:40so thank you so, so much.
OK, for this week's story,
1:43I'm going to tell you about an outing my
wife and I did this week where we visited
1:49the Blue House. So let's get started with that
story now. I hope you enjoy it. Here we go.
1:58So just a few days ago my wife and I visited
the Blue House. Now you've probably heard about
2:05the White House. I think that one's a little bit
more famous globally. The White House, of course,
2:11is where the American president lives. And the
Blue House, also known as Cheongwadae in the
2:17Korean language, the Blue House is where the
Korean president lived up until 2022. It was
2:24the official residency of the Korean president.
President Yoon, who was elected at that time,
2:31decided to change his residency to a different
location. And so in 2022, the Cheongwadae grounds,
2:39because it's this big complex of actually several
different buildings, it became open as a public
2:45park and the public was allowed from that time
to come in and visit and go on a tour. And so
2:51that's what my wife and I did this last week.
And it's called the Blue House because the tiles
2:57of the roof of this residency are blue. And so
it's this beautiful blue roof, it actually looks
3:04really really spectacular up close. And it was
really, really impressive. I had a great time. I
3:10felt like this is one of the more interesting
sightseeing things that I've done in Seoul,
3:16especially, yeah, in the last since you know
I've been a long-term resident here in Seoul. So,
3:21as time goes on things get a little less and
less exciting. But this was a really cool,
3:26unique, first-time experience
for me, so I really enjoyed it.
3:31So, to visit you can't just go anytime you want,
you need to make a reservation. And my wife and I
3:38made reservations probably like six weeks or
two months ago. So, we had to make them well
3:44in advance, but it's free. You just go online and
you can make a reservation with your smartphone.
3:50And so we did that. And then it was finally time
to visit and we got to the official entrance gate
3:59of the Blue House grounds. And like I said, it's
this huge complex. There's big gardens inside,
4:07there are several different buildings, there's
one building which hosts, like, state dinners. You
4:14know, over the years there have been the heads of
state from many different countries. I was reading
4:19through the Wikipedia article before we visited,
and you can see pictures on the Wikipedia article
4:25of, like, Obama visiting, Trump visiting, other
presidents from around the world and heads of
4:31state from around the world visiting. So there's
like this area and building where the guests,
4:38you know, if they're having a function or
a dinner party or something, they'll go.
4:42There is a big, kind of, office building
where the official work is done. There's
4:48the president's residency, like their private
home. And there's a guest house for guests and
4:54several different buildings there. There are some
gardens, there's a big garden, a small garden,
5:00there's a pond, there's a creek, it backs up into
this mountain called Bukaksan and there are some
5:06hiking trails in the mountain. So it's like this
big, complex, really really beautiful and it was
5:12just awesome to walk around there for a few hours.
So when we arrived, actually getting in was quite
5:20painless. We made the reservation online, like
I said, and after making your reservation,
5:25you get sent a QR code. And when you arrive, you
have to wait in line. It was just a short line,
5:33and you show your QR code on your phone, they
scan it, and then you have to go through a
5:37security check. And after going through
the metal detector and the security check,
5:43you're in, and you're allowed to wander through
the grounds freely. And so that's what we did.
5:50Now, if you want to go inside the Blue House
itself, which as far as I know is like, it's
5:57not where the president would live. The president
would live in a different official residency on
6:04this grounds, but it's like a smaller home. The
Blue House would be where the President's office
6:09is and official business takes place. And that
building is also open to the public so you could
6:15go inside and tour around in that building.
But the line to get in there was so, so long,
6:22it was stretching, it seemed like for miles.
It probably wasn't a mile but definitely easily
6:29over a thousand people waiting in this line.
And when we were trying to find where the end
6:34of the line was to go inside and actually see
the Blue House, there was a sign that said,
6:41"From this point on, the wait is 60 minutes." And
then at that sign, we looked and we still couldn't
6:47see the back of the line. So I imagine that it
would have been well over an hour to wait in line
6:53to get inside and see the Blue House in person.
And when we visited, like I mentioned here, it's
7:01been boiling in Seoul. For whatever reason this
summer, it's been super, super hot. It's usually
7:08rainy in the summer here, but it's barely rained
at all and it's just been this heatwave instead.
7:13So the day that we visited, we were there
in the morning, we visited at 10:30, so
7:20around 10:30-11:00 a.m., probably by the time we
were in and could have been waiting in this line,
7:26and we're like, "Nah, we're not gonna wait in this
line for 60 plus minutes in the scorching sun." I
7:36think we would have just melted. So we passed
on actually going into the Blue House itself,
7:41but we did tour around and looked at
the grounds and it was just amazing.
7:47It was really, really spectacular. The
architecture, the colors, and just the
7:53grounds itself. As you can imagine, the
presidential residency is in a really
8:00prime location, right? Really beautiful location.
And so it's in central Seoul, right behind one of
8:06the main palaces in Seoul, is where the Blue House
is located. So, one of the older palaces from the
8:15Chosun era, Korea's past when they had kings and
queens, that royal period. OK? Behind one of the
8:23royal palaces is where this is and it faces
downtown Seoul and the Han River to the front
8:30and then behind it there is a mountain. And so
because of its location, I thought this was really
8:36interesting and I wanted to share this with you.
Because of the location, many people say that
8:41there's good feng shui. In English, we use
this term “feng shui,” which comes probably
8:46from China. Maybe some of our listeners,
you guys can chime in and tell me where
8:51this term “feng shui” originally comes from.
Because of course, it's not an English concept,
8:55but I think comes from China. But to an extent,
feng shui is also believed in here, in Korea.
9:02And so yeah, I wanted to share this
quote that I found on Wikipedia with
9:06you about the location of the Blue House because
I thought it was really interesting. So it says,
9:13"Geomancers," and Geomancers are people who
practice this kind of feng shui, right? "have
9:20long considered the area which Cheongwadae is
located as an auspicious location." So I believe,
9:27and I'm not an expert in feng shui, but I believe
“an auspicious location” means like a good place,
9:34right? Good place with good luck and good vibes.
And it says, "This view was backed up by an
9:40inscription on a stone that reads, 'The most
blessed place on earth,' found behind the official
9:47presidential residence during the construction of
a new building in 1990." So, they were doing some
9:53construction on the Blue House in 1990, and as
they were doing that construction, they found this
9:58rock and inscribed, carved into the rock, it said
this, "The most blessed place on earth." Super
10:06interesting. So that led many people to believe
like, "Oh, this place has some good vibes."
10:11However, “others contend that it is cursed. An
urban legend known as the ‘Blue House Curse.’” An
10:20urban legend is like, kind of, a myth or maybe
a conspiracy that many people believe in,
10:26you're like, "Kind of maybe it's true? Maybe
it's not true." Right? An urban legend. Think
10:31of like Bigfoot in North America. That's an
urban legend that there's this giant, wild ape
10:38that lives in the forests of the west coast of
North America. Bigfoot, right? Many people say,
10:44"Oh I've seen it before” when they're out
hiking, but yeah, it's never been proven, right?
10:49So there's also this urban legend about
the “Blue House Curse.” And it goes on
10:55to say, "Choi Chang-jo, a former professor of
geography at Seoul National University argued in
11:02the 1990s that the Cheongwadae site is a permanent
residence of dead souls or a residence of God due
11:10to the misfortunes that have befallen on to former
presidents." And it's really true. If you look
11:18at the history of former Korean presidents, they
don't have a lot of good luck. Many of them have
11:24ended up dead or imprisoned. And in fact, as I'm
recording this right now, the ex-Korean president,
11:33President Yoon, who was the one who decided to
actually move his official residence away from the
11:40Blue House and to a different area, and opened
it as a park, so that I guess I could visit,
11:45in a way, that's good. But he's in jail right now
as I speak. So maybe there's something to this,
11:52although he didn't live there, so I don't
know. It's just been an interesting factoid
11:57of modern Korean history that a lot of their
presidents end up in an unfavorable position.
12:04Anyways, as I was touring, I was wondering what
President Yoon was thinking about changing his
12:12official residence from this beautiful, beautiful
grounds right in the middle of Seoul. Like I said,
12:17it was this prime location and I guess there's a
bit of controversy about the location, right? Some
12:23people say that it's blessed, others say that it's
cursed. Personally, I felt like it was a blessed
12:29location. It was so beautiful and just right in
the center of the city. You look out to downtown
12:34Seoul and you have this amazing view. There's
Namsan, Seoul Tower, the Jongno downtown area,
12:41behind that the Han River and the mountains
in the background looking towards Gangnam,
12:47just really really amazing view and location.
And what I thought was so cool,
12:52you're wandering through the gardens
and there are these beautiful trees,
12:58apparently there are over a hundred and twenty
different species of trees on the grounds. And
13:04many of them have signs so you can see what kind
of tree they are and yeah, just really awesome.
13:11But if you look up at the sky, and people who
are listening to this, if you guys are from a
13:18big city, you can try this, maybe if you're from a
small town, then maybe it won't work. But here in
13:23Seoul, if you look up at the sky, it's very, very
hard to see an unobstructed view. Almost always,
13:30when you look up at the sky, you're going to see
some electricity wires, or a skyscraper, or an
13:36apartment complex, or something. It's really hard
to see just an open sky view. Unless you look like
13:42straight up, right? If you look straight up, maybe
you can see the sky, but if you look at an angle,
13:48your view is always obstructed, always blocked
by something else. However, at the Blue House
13:54grounds, it was 100% unobstructed view of the sky.
And so I felt like I wasn't even in a city at all.
14:03It was really, really amazing in that regard.
So, my wife and I just wandered around. We really
14:09had no plan. There was one map in English,
I was able to snag the last English map.
14:18And “snag” means like this kind of action where
you grab something quickly. I was able to snag
14:24it. You could imagine maybe a bird hunting for
a fish. Think about an eagle going down and then
14:31snagging a fish, just grabbing it really quickly
out of the water. That's this action of snag. So,
14:37I was able to snag the last English map.
And then we were just following the map, walking
14:43around the garden, walking around the grounds. We
went up one of the hiking paths in the back. And
14:51it was really amazing when you get to the top of
the hiking path, there is a statue of Buddha and
14:57this statue was apparently from the 9th century.
And it was taken from Gyeongju apparently by a
15:04Japanese official during the Japanese colonial
occupation period of Korea's history. So yeah,
15:11pretty amazing to see that ancient, ancient
Buddha statue right there on the mountain
15:16as well and examine that. Really impressive.
And so yeah, we just visited some of the other
15:23areas and I have to say it was super, super
packed. There were tons and tons of people.
15:30My wife said that apparently 2,000 people can
enter per an hour. Of course you do need to
15:36make that reservation like I said, but it
felt to me like there were more than 2,000
15:41people in there. It was absolutely packed and
thankfully when we went up the hiking paths,
15:48there weren't as many people so we got some quiet
time there and we could stroll at a leisurely
15:54pace, a slow pace and do some nice sightseeing.
But when you were down in more of the main areas
16:00near the front, then there were so many people and
it was a boiling hot day, and everybody's trying
16:06to stay out of the sun so they have their parasols
open which just makes it a little bit difficult to
16:12walk around too. You always have to make sure
you don't get poked in the eye by a parasol.
16:18And when it's really hot like
that too I think people are,
16:22they get annoyed more easily and me too, I get
annoyed more easily. So things like standing in
16:28a line or waiting your turn to take a photo, these
all become more and more annoying. So, we walked
16:34around the grounds for probably about two, two and
a half hours and like I said I really enjoyed it.
16:42Unfortunately, some of the other buildings you
couldn't go inside, so you just had to take a
16:47photo from the outside. But I did take a lot
of photos, so I'll share those in the YouTube
16:53video. If you're watching the YouTube version of
this episode, I'll of course put them there or on
16:58Instagram as well, and maybe even on our Discord
as well for all of our Discord users who don't use
17:04other kinds of social media. Some people have told
me they're not on Instagram or YouTube, just the
17:09Discord, so I'll try and do that there as well.
But overall, it was like a 10 out of 10
17:14experience. I'm not really doing it justice
here with my words, but it was just really,
17:19really impressive. And I was joking to my
wife that she has to run for office. She
17:26has to become a future Korean president because I
want to live in the Blue House. I want to live on
17:32these grounds. It was just absolutely incredible.
And I'm not sure, we just had an election not too
17:40long ago here in Korea. And a new president
was elected, Lee Jae Myung. And I'm not sure
17:46what the plan is. I should have probably
researched this before I started recording,
17:51but I'm wondering if he won't move back into
the Blue House. And when he does do that, then I
17:56imagine it would close as a park to the public.
So, this might have been just a really lucky
18:01opportunity that I had to visit. I'm not so sure
what the plan is with the future residency there
18:08for Lee Jae Myung and future Korean presidents.
But, I would say that if you are a Korean person
18:14and you have an opportunity to visit, then you
definitely should. It's worth your time. And
18:20if you ever visit Korea in the future, add it to
your bucket list to try and check it out because
18:25it was really cool. And I think I was one of the
only foreigners that I saw in there. I heard a
18:32little bit of Chinese, so I think there were a
couple of Chinese tourists who were visiting,
18:36but I didn't see any other foreigners. So maybe
this is not something that's like well known to
18:42people who aren't Korean as a place that you can
visit. But, a really really cool experience and
18:49I'm glad I had the opportunity, especially if
they close it down for public visitation in the
18:54future. I'm glad I had the chance to do that.
So yeah, I was joking with my wife. She has to
18:59become a future Korean president because I want
to, want to live in there. And interestingly
19:06enough, I believe, I believe it was one of the
first Korean presidents was actually married
19:11to a foreigner. So one of the, I guess we'd say
“The first lady.” That's what we use in American
19:20vernacular to talk about the wife of the president
is “The first lady.” I'm not sure what they say in
19:27the Korean language, but the wife of the president
in the USA is called “The first lady.” So one,
19:32I believe it was the first Korean President
Lee Seung-man, he was married to a foreigner
19:39so there was actually a foreigner first lady.
And I don't know what, what is the husband of
19:44a president called, “First man”? I'm not sure! I'm
gonna have to do some more research about this but
19:49perhaps I could be the first foreign first man of
the Korean Blue House. I'm not sure. I was joking
19:58about that with my wife. But my point here is
that it was just a beautiful grounds, beautiful
20:04architecture, and lovely weather. A little bit
too hot, but just a great outing with my wife and
20:13I thought I'd tell you about that experience here.
After we finished, it was around lunchtime and we
20:19were too hot, too tired from walking around
all morning, so we went to a nearby noodle
20:27house and we had some buckwheat noodles, some
cold buckwheat noodles and a buckwheat pancake,
20:33and it was a delicious lunch. Usually,
I'm really really against waiting in
20:39line to go into a restaurant, but apparently this
restaurant had really good reviews. And lunchtime,
20:48we went on a weekday. So we were there on a
Thursday morning. and all around this area of
20:55Seoul there are a lot of government offices, and
also a lot of police and security. As I mentioned,
21:01it's right by one of the main royal palaces and
of course the Blue House and other government
21:08installations. It's also a place where a lot
of protests happen. And so there's always a
21:13huge police presence in this area of Seoul.
So as you can imagine, lunchtime, when all of
21:19these government workers and other office workers
and police officers are all on break for lunch,
21:24then the restaurants get very, very busy. But
I was really hankering, really craving some of
21:32these, these buckwheat noodles. So, even though
there was a little bit of a wait I told my wife,
21:37"Let's just wait. Let's do it," because I really
wanted to try them out. Also the waiting area
21:43for this restaurant was in the shade, which was
another thing because I thought every restaurant
21:49around in this area is going to be jam-packed at
lunchtime just because of the tourists and the
21:54government workers and the police officers
and everybody that's going to eat lunch at
21:58the same time. So, I knew every restaurant
would be exactly the same way. So I said,
22:04"Let's just wait here, we'll eat these delicious
buckwheat noodles, and we can wait in the shade."
22:09And actually we only had to wait around
20 minutes. I broke my own rule of never
22:14waiting in line for a restaurant for this one
time, and it was worth it. We had a delicious
22:20lunch and just a great morning touring around
Seoul, playing tourists in our own town here.
22:30Alright everyone, I think that's all I have
to say about my trip to the Blue House. I hope
22:34you enjoyed listening to my story. Don't forget,
there's a free transcript and vocabulary glossary
22:41for this episode on our website, Culips.com and if
you'd like to sign up and become a Culips member
22:46as well, that'd be awesome. We'd love to welcome
you to the Culips member community. You can learn
22:50all the details and sign up and become a member
on our website, which is Culips.com. Please take
22:57care guys, and I'll talk to you in the next
brand-new Culips episode. Until then, bye bye.
