Seoul Man part 2

On Sunday morning we tried to get an early start. We didn’t. But we tried. The first order of business was to find something to eat and after exhausting any other possibility we ended up at another McDonalds. We really were dying for a western style breakfast but we couldn’t find anything in our area, and then we were just dying for anything open that wasn’t KFC.

So after fueling our bodies with thee nutritional equivalent of battery acid we set off to see the Olympic Park. It was a long subway ride away but a pretty little park. Five or so stadiums now converted to college and public use surrounded by some nice paths and sculptures. There was a forty foot red metal banana looking thing and some sculpture that looked like a playground built from an auto wrecking yard. The second one had a plaque explaining how it depicted the negation of history by time or some such stuff. I think Ken summed it up well after reading it by saying: “I wish I was smart enough to care to understand that.”

We were some of the only foreigners there and Ken was quickly accosted by a Korean teenager trying to give him directions. She was a strange mix of shyness and enthusiasm and had perhaps a few too many jokers in the deck. I watched the bizarre exchange like a tv show which of course means that I dissociated myself entirely and let Ken deal with it. It was quite amusing and afterwards the girl gave me an apple to commemorate the new year.

We then set out to get a boat tour of the Han River, taking a long subway ride to the other side of the ciy- only to discover that we could have actually caught the boat near Olympic park and rode it back. Live and learn. The boat tour was a good view, but after about half an hour it was like the museum we had been to the other day; just a lot of the same stuff. What I found curious was that many Koreans never left the picnic table set up in the cabin or even seemed to look out a window. I guess I’m just enough of a skeptic that it isn’t enough to ride in a boat I have to actually go on deck and see the boat moving to derive enjoyment.

you'll have to take my word that there is a boat beneath me

We got off and checked out a big skyscraper which was another tourist hotspot. I had no interest in paying $12 to visit another skydeck (like a high floor bt only more expensive), and the buffet there looked ridiculously pricey. Apparently in some countries all the food you can eat is something reserved for the rich instead of the poor and frugal.

We searched in vain for a grillhouse but ended up at a TGIFridays as only chain restaurants were open. The meal was decent if a little pricey, although it would soon become apparent that filling my stomach to the brim with ribs wasn’t the best course of action.

We took the bridge back over the river to the main city by Ken’s insistence, I thought it looked way too long. By about halfway across I realized that I was going to have to visit a restroom with plenty of toilet paper quite soon. By 3/4s of the way across I realized that I might not make it. Its tough to get so close to making a mess you haven’t made since senior kindergarten in your pants and have almost no alternatives. The only one here being trying to discreetly do mybusiness on a conrete bridge with heavy traffic. By a stroke of pure luck there was a portapotty on the other side of the bridge down some stairs.

I almost didn’t make it, shedding my coat and bag early and getting everything lined up just in time. Two days with hardly any fruits or vegetables has an interesting effect on my body I don’t care to repeat.

like a horror movie, especially what went on inside

The upside was that for the rest of the night I was euphoric at my good fortune and the five pounds I had just lost. We happened upon a park with a bunch of exercise equipment in and I was like a kid in a candy store. I have never seen a barbell bench set out for public use and had to give it a try.

take that gravity!

We then went bowling, which turned out to be relatively pricey but not a bad time. Aside from the fact that I bowled horribly and the owner decided to hover around us like an unamused specter. We decided to head back to the same area of town as the night before as the rest of the town looked dead.

We got lost along the way. Korean streets aren’t set up in grid patterns so its easy to get turned around, but I for one just went completely bonkers trying to figure out where we were. I hate losing direction but what I hate even more is feeling like your brain is doing laps in a velodrome. We ended u where we were heading, but could have been dropped there by aliens for all the sense our route made to me.

We finished off our night again at WaBar. Mainly because the beer was cheap but also because it was one of the few places in that area that we were sure weren’t whorehouses. We were pretty dog tired and it was no surprise that we both decided that cutting our Seoul stay a little short by catching an earlier train the next day would be good.

We did finally get our western breakfast the next morning. Unfortunately it was again McDonalds. And they were out of hotcakes. But the coffee wasn’t bad and after serving the tourists in front of me the cashier was suitably stunned with my command of the Korean language (despite the fact that all the menu items are pronounced the English way).

But I did enjoy my Seoul trip and if I come back one day I know what places to hit when the city is a little more happening. But I think the best thing to come out of it is that I did it. I have a tendency to talk about stuff more than act on it and I managed to follow through on this trip with little planning and even less over thinking.