Seoul [Part 3]

Let’s recap. We’ve gotten safely to Korea, explored a bit, and have a pretty good grasp on the city.

Or do we? While it’s as touristy as it gets, I think the best way to see a city is from above. So exactly how bit *is* this place? We take a cable car up the mountain, hike up a few flights of stairs and then take a $5 elevator ride up to the top of Seoul Tower where I can wash my hands in style.

This is is a view towards the northwest. It continues like this in all directions:

Click on this image for an enlarged version

And then the adventure begins.

Our plans for the morning included bumming around the city, perhaps eating some lunch that was sold from the back of a vehicle. (check.) The afternoon plans get a bit trickier. We’re going to find a brewery I heard, about on the other side of town.

First, we have to take a train. The train system was fairly similar to Tokyo, so with map in hand we headed out. On our 45 minute ride across town the craziness began. This woman was pulling a card up and down the train aisle selling foodstuffs. You’d think she would have a captive audience, but there didn’t seem to be any takers.

Then this handicapped and homeless man came up to me and started yelling and tapping my feet and drawing on the ground and making just terrible noises. I didn’t handle the situation properly. I jumped up on the chair and crawled over him. Escape. He went down the isle of the train car and did this to almost everyone. Most people didn’t flinch – maybe this is common.

Okay. Now it get tricky. My directions say to get off at a particular trainstop and go out exit #8. What happens then? Well, I thought it would be obvious. What was obvious (in retrospect) is that I got us lost in a new city, and started feeling rather down about it. Ever the intelligent boy, jon had an idea. We found a kinkos and logged onto their computers.

What. Would. We. Do. Without. Internet.

After wandering around this neighborhood for 30 or so minutes, we figured out why we couldn’t find the brewery – it had CLOSED! (For the record, it should have been 10 steps from the train exit that I wrote down.) Luckily, they had another location about 2 miles away! My spirits lifted by an ingenious husband and some ginseng candies, we set out to find it.

Really, it was quite incredible both that we made it and that it was open. I have to say though, that it was the weirdest brewery ever. It was so dark it was like a nightclub. Black walls, little red lights on the table, projection tv. Pretty good beer.

Now, I know this is weird. And as you know, I have no shame in taking pictures. This is the coolest bathroom evar. Its a CIRCLE! with red tiles! and a mirror on top!!

And to close the story, I started stalking a respectable Korean woman. See, I remember Rachel telling me about these red-soled shoes. Apparently only Christian Louboutin makes shoes with red soles, so if you happen to be wearing them everyone around knows you’re rich. This woman walking ahead of me had them! If could I was *stalking* her, so i couldn’t get a good photo. But rachel, i totally thought of you:

Dinner and Drinks

After the palace we headed to dinner.

We’ve finally figured out (reluctantly) that most good places to eat exist in a mall, possibly attached to a train station. Mall food isn’t …. “good” where we come from, so we were very reluctant to relearn this. Anyhow. We found the mall, checked out our options and decided on a place that we thought looked pretty good.

One of the craziest things about eating in japan is that we really just never know what we’re getting. Rarely are we disappointed, but sometimes… we’re pleasantly surprised. After a long day of walking, we sat down to a very well prepared small-plate style meal.

Pork and leek yakitori:

Maguro Kama (tuna collar w/ cheek):

Really awesome sake flask:

Afterward we went to find a brewery in Shinjuku. It was pretty cool – tasty beer and a nice ambiance.

Not to mention that this was the first place we saw with a sampler tray! No crazy trying-to-explain-in-the-wrong-language.

And then the coolest thing happened. I looked up how to say “can i buy a glass” in the dictionary (to see if we could buy a pint glass) and then i said it to the waiter. and then… he looked around and came back with the manager who said “We don’t have any new ones, but you can have one of the bar glasses!” and then he GAVE us a pint glass. How cool is that! I kind of spoke japanese and kind of got something in return. It was rad. And magical.

Brewery Tours

The Kirin Brewery tour was next today. (Pronouced “kee-Ri-nn” long first syllable, flip the “r” and a really short last syllable. jon was corrected several times by helpful Japanese folk.)

Every half hour they led free tours that were ended with a quick beer tasting. I say quick because jon and I were literally kicked out after 20 minutes. Seriously, who can finish two full beers in 20 minutes!? Sheesh

Unfortunately, they had a strict no-camera policy which really stinks because they also had a lot of great visuals! They gave us a English brochure before the tour that talked a lot about their process and their social policies, etc. Very, very handy because the tour was all in japanese.

But that’s okay. It gave me an opportunity to play The Translation Game again!

Their brochure talked a lot about their environmental commitment, featuring Ecojiro, the environmental mascot who was created by the foam of beer. Personally, i think he looks like a cloud but i love that they tied him in to the whole theme. I also like that, despite being evil mega conglomerate, they made an effort to also be eco-conscious.

After that we went to another brewery that was on the same lot as Kirin (I believe it was the original location of the brewery) and had a quick dinner. Beer was so-so and seemed to follow that generic “I’m an asian beer” style.

On the way home we met some pandas.

And that’s all I’ve got for you. Jon just put his book away and turned off the light, so i suppose that means I should stop blogging and go to bed too.

Thanks for reading. Your comments really make my day.

Exploring Yokohama

Today I wandered. For hours.  Eventually I ended up in a place where I had no idea which direction was north and only a vague idea of which direction was home.  I wandered until I found a subway station, any subway station (because now I’m a pro) and made my way back home.

From the trip, i’ve gathered a slightly  better grip of the city layout (how big the city is) and something of a headache.

This picture is for Isaiah and Corey – here’s the ferris wheel I was talking about today. Also… I found ferry boats!

My first stop of the day was to locate the Yokohama Brewery that jon and I misplaced the other day. Success.

Feeling good. Feeling invincible. I continued on.

As it turns out, there is another entire downtown section of yokohama. This is the 2nd time I’ve had this realization. It’s called “Isezaki-cho” and is kind of near the stadium.

There’s a pretty huge street mall (think Pearl Street, but more ghetto) and it seems to go on forever. Most people in Yokohama seem to have their act together – walking is for suckas! Bicycles… that’s where the action is.

After walking the length of it, I decided that the first 3 blocks were where the action was at. It’s funny, the stores progress from Starbucks-style places to Pachinko parlours to strip clubs. Gets kind of skeezy pretty fast.

For those of you who are sitting in your comfortable American city, surrounded by English as far as the eye can see, thinking “Poor teamEggers. They must be so lost and confused. All the time!” I’d like to set the record straight. While we may be lost and confused, there *are* a lot of signs in English. Much, much more than I had imagined before I got here.

This leads me to believe that more people speak English than let on, and they let me stumble through Japanese out of pity. Or gratitude for trying. Or a mixture of the two.

In the civilized part of town, there also seems to be street maps available with some regularity. Trusty “you are here” arrows make sure you’re not *too* lost.

Unfortunately, these only appear to exist in the densely populated areas where you can’t ever really be lost. Now, when you accidentally wander into the neighborhoods of Yokohama, these (very useful) maps are no where to be found. Some city planning. Sons of bitches.

Ahem. Anyhow. I found a random street market, that seemed to be aimed at the immediate surrounding neighborhood. It had all kinds of every-day sorts of things (not like the cell phone shops and balla’ wear of the previous street mall I found). But I do wonder… for a country with so much technology (this is a first world country, remember), shouldn’t there be some… refrigeration?

So, by this time I’m thoroughly mixed up, but I have some idea of where a subway station may be. On the way there, I passed a preschool and this awesome street post. It’s totally irrelevant to any sort of story, but I think it’s nice. It probably says something like “don’t park here”, or “that’s concentrated evil coming out of your backside”.

chinatown

I know it may sound odd that we went to chinatown in japan. But the largest chinatown IN japan happens to be 2 subway stops away.  So of course we have to go…

As many of our adventure do, we started out trying to find a brewery.  As there aren’t really *addresses* or *street names* in japan, we didnt’ have the best of luck. We’ll try again soon, as we got a bit of advice from an English-speaking bartender later that day.

While wandering down to the chinatown, we walked past a little sushi stand.

As it turns out, they only served three kinds of sushi, all vegetarian. Our choices were: inari, kanpyo maki, vegetarian futomaki, or a combination box with all three. One combo box and a park bench later…

(as a sidenote, we’re watching the sumo tournament on tv now. Asashoyu is such a douchebag. I feel cheap and dirty to have his signature.)

As the wise words of the 7-11 lady rings true… “first walk, walk, walk, then suuuuuushi, then” chinatown!!!!

Overall, it was good with the busy, narrowly packed streets full of vendors selling roasted chestnuts and chinese sticky buns. It was much better decorated than the Seattle International District, but I can’t say that it was like… spectacular.

I’m not sure. Maybe we missed something but it just seemed like lots and lots of streets with WAY to many people (in true japanese form) and the same things.

We did find a temple of some sorts. I don’t know much about Chinese religion, but there was incense burning and old men tossing coins into boxes.

Between this temple and also the one that we visited on sumo day, I’ve become interested in learning more about Shinto, the native Japanese religion. I like it. It reminds me of paganism and seems very approachable. While I really like the teachings of Buddhism, I find it to be way to strict for an average western – meat-eating – lady. I think that’s a post for another day though.