Seoul [Part 1]

My story begins in the airport, where I am again surprised at the omnipresence of my native language. Jon and I have had this discussion countless times over the past ten years, but I don’t think it’s ever really sunk in until today. We were very fortunate to be born as English speakers. Our language is everywhere. A lot of people, worldwide, communicate to us, for us, with us. So why was I so surprised that the city of Seoul was near-equally translated in Korean, Japanese, & English?

Outside we were greeted by great weather for the season. Chilly, but at least the sun was out. What a cool airport.

After an hour-long bus ride into the city of Seoul, we hit our hotel. I am notorious for choosing “quirky” hotels where the bathroom is down the hall or there’s no air conditioning. This time I think I hit a winner. For $80/night we stayed in a really central location and a fun room. Not fancy or luxurious, but that’s not really what the weekend was about.

Below is the view from our room – I was serious when I said it was centrally located!

The first thing we see after stepping into the city was the street food. There’s something really awesome about countries with looser health regulations than America. (Makes me think of Jon’s dad and how even the idea of all the health-code-violations in these places would make me thrilled to be retiring soon!)

The first night we were there, we wandered around and took in the sights. It’s nice to get a handle on your surroundings in a really low-pressure way. We didn’t have any expectations for the evening or anywhere to be… that is except for *in* this seagulls mouth!! (What can I say? I like climbing in things!)

And you know, that’s it for the night. After our seven-hour travel day, I remembered that this was the closest international spot (by a long shot), and I’m grateful that we didn’t take an 8 hour flight to Bangkok. It’s going to be a great weekend.

Seoul [Part 2]

With our brightest eyes and out bushiest tails, we set out to conquer Seoul.

Or at least, as much of a city with 22 million people that you can see in one day. For the record, Tokyo is the largest city (population) in the world, then Seoul, then New York City. We found a pretty cool walking tour that took us exploring downtown. The directions amused me, so I share them with you:

“Start at Jonggak Station.” (This is Jonggak tower. Seoul has some really cool architecture and some really interesting graphic design. But more on that later.

“At street level, turn 180* and see Boin-gak. Walk right & past street food.” (Look, Ann – a picture of jon smiling with teeth!)

DETOUR! What’s that in the distance? It’s a really neat pagoda thing! We stumbled on this monument to the Korean Declaration of Independence. Which I’m sure would have been a good read if they had bothered to translate it for the American tourists.

Have you ever seen that poster called “Doors of Ireland”? No? Okay fine. Ireland can suck it. SEOUL has some sweet doors! Before we get back to the tour, check out these gems:

“Turn right at first main street and you’re on a street with giant piano keys” (And please, someone tell me. How do you walk past a giant piano without playing it with your feet? okay, okay… it was just a soundless piano sculpture. but dammit, it was neat!)

“Cross the bridge, walk down the left steps, turn 180* and walk straight for 10 minutes.” (With directions like this, HOW did we not get irreparably lost?!)

“Near a statue of a giant screw, turn 180*, walk straight and turn right at the corner.”

Then we were supposed to keep going down this beautiful tree-lined street. Except that… in winter, the tree-lined street isn’t immediately recognizable for it’s lack of leaves.

DETOUR! What’s that in the distance? A… Palace? And I can explore for 1000 Won (75 cents!). Sounds great! I love it when there are super old things in the middle of a really cosmopolitan city. I dig the contrast. So yeah, we’re walking aboot, exploring the old palace grounds. Here’s a bunch of odds and end photos of what we found:

So I’ve heard about this thing called “High Dynamic Range” photographs. You take multiple photos of the same shot, both under and over exposed, and then when you put them together you have the best of everything. I’ve seen this result in wicked cool photos, though I imagine it’s important to have a wicked cool subject matter to start with. Here’s my first experiment. Combining these 4 photographs:

…I get this one. Which is, admittedly, only slightly better than the midrange above.

Quickly now! We’d better get back to the tour, yes? We’ve gotten a bit turned around, but manage to pick up the trail over at Namdaemun Market, which is surprisingly like Tiajuana of the East. There are women slanging socks, men selling knock-off outerwear and an overwhelming amount of people selling ginseng products. Ginseng, which is put into energy drinks like Red Bull, is said to give you energy. I bought a bag of hard candies. I can’t tell you if it was the candies, the euphoria of being in a new place, or caffeine high from my 6 shots of espresso that morning, but let me tell you – I had energy! (They had an espresso machine in the hotel brunch. You would have had 6 shots too, if they were free.)

I leave you now with the first type of street food that I am 100% unwilling to try. Judge me if you must. Steaming silkworm larva:

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:

Seoul [Part 4]

This is the dinner post.

It’s the one where I get to tell you about the awesome things we ate and how cool it was, but that I’m sad you weren’t there to enjoy it with me. Because this is one of those meals that each one of you would have liked. Okay, except for you Rachel, but know you have a carnivorous spirit inside that vegetarian hippy-shell of yours.

Korean Barbecue, or gogi gui, refers to the method of meat over hot charcoal on your table. It’s served with lots of different condiments and salad-type things. It was like… bundles of joy in my mouth. Unfortunately for jon everything in korea was a bit spicy.

We washed it down with some tasty chilean cab and then paid with our funny-money.

Hopped up on protein, wine, and a good conversation, we took to the streets in search of dessert. While there are quite a few awesome things about living here, asian countries don’t do dessert well. They like to put bean paste everywhere that we would put chocolate.

Because i can’t clearly remember the rest of the evening, I’ll leave you with these random bits of photographic genius:

I love pictograms. This one clearly states that you should NOT fall down the elevator shaft.

perhaps I should rename the title of this post…

Seoul [Part 5]

So that was Seoul. It’s now Sunday morning and we’re off. We had a few hours to kill between checking out of the hotel and hopping on the bus back to the airport, so we walked around looking for breakfast and coffee.

I’m going to admit something to you, dear readers.

I hate that jon isn’t a coffee drinker. Okay, okay. He’ll drink a latte when we go out, but just as the occasional social cigarette doesn’t make you a “smoker”, the occasional latte doesn’t make you a “coffee drinker”. I should be thankful that he’s not utterly useless before caffeine. I should be thankful that he’s not a total bitch in the morning. But you know, misery loves company.

Is there anything better than food made right in front of you? Street food is so… unpretentious and viscerally enjoyable. It’s usually messy. Designed to sell, its smell tends to waft through the air around.

Well, I’m glad you asked. Yes, there IS something better than breakfast sandwiches made to order. What’s that? It’s *free internet* in *airports*. Seoul has my heart forever. They not only provided free wifi, but also use of a dozen different laptops.

We boarded on the largest plane I think I’ve been on – jon and I sat on the top floor of this double-decker. It was a really comfortable 2 hour ride home.

All things considered, we had a fantastic weekend. It was relaxing in all the ways that a day wandering around a city can be, and perfect to have no agenda except being together.