Seoul Part 1

Taking a cue from Ken I think I'm going to do this blog in two parts. I'm feeling a little sick today (after a weekend of eating crappy food- no connection I'm sure) so I'll give you friday and saturday today and sunday/ monday soon.

Seoul Trip

So an unexpected long weekend came and I thought it would be a good time to check out the place called Seoul. For those of you not aware Seoul is the mecca of south Korea, a giant metropolis where a quarter of the population calls home. It’s the city that most people think of when I tell them where I am teaching (unless their knee jerk is rice paddies and nukes). Having been in Korea for four months I thought it was time to finally venture outside of Busan and see a little more of the world. So my buddy Ken and I packed some bags booked a hostel and a train and jetted off Friday night.

Time being our most valuable resource we took the bullet train up. A marvel of modern impatience that travels upwards of 300km/h. When it feels like it. Ken and I were both disappointed that the lights of Korea weren’t convalescing into a warp speed blur as we sat in the train. In retrospect it occurred to me that the train probably wasn’t going to go 300 km/h the entire 3 hour trip unless Seoul was 900km away. It isn’t.

We got into town and found our hostel without too much trouble. I had some difficulties explaining our destination to the cab driver but we somehow got dropped off pretty much on its front door. The hostel we were at, although having a quaint love of small rooms, was actually fairly nice. For about a quarter of the price of the cheap hotel that was recommended to us by Ken’s coworker we had a tidy little room with private bath, cable tv and all the novelty of bunk beds. Couple that with the free breakfasts (coffee toast and jam) and the internet room and I am now convinced that Beewon Hostel is Korean for bargain.

BeeWon Hostel is known for its great view

Our first night in was a late arrival so the plan for the night was to wander around for a place to eat, a task which we completed both amiably and aimlessly. The blocks of dark windows were our first hint that maybe we didn’t catch the city on its absolute most happening weekend. It was the Lunar New Year and we were told that most people in Seoul would be out of town visiting family. I figured in a city of 20 million it would still be pretty darn busy. I was so wrong. Even from the first night we noticed that most businesses were closed and the streets were empty. We eventually settled down for a very spicy bowl of bibimbap ( a fun name to say that means ‘throw rice and veggies in a bowl with too much hot sauce and see if the foreigners will eat it’) and headed back home for an early night (2am or so).

The next day we met some Australians in the hostel over the breakfast -I was making breakfast tacos with some tuna, bread and a whole lot of imagination. Everyone was really friendly (exemplified by the fact that no one made fun of my sandwiches) but we soon parted ways as Ken and I went out for some real food. We walked by some ancient palaces, but were not there in time for the English tours. We were however right in time for the changing of the guards at GyeongBokGung Palace. There was a ceremonial parade in which a group of sharply dressed men with fake beards plastered to their faces marched around the front of the ancient palace. Korean males nowadays don’t sport much in the way of whiskers, but as the popular historic dramas on television show me they once had full thick black beards. The guards at the palace met halfway with large thin beards hanging from their cheeks.

even without words or eye contact annoyance can be conveyed

We wandered around for food. Now we were in an unfamiliar city but we are pretty comfortable around Korean cuisine nowadays. If only any Korean restaurants were open. Nine out of ten shops we passed were closed, the remainders were usually double fried chicken places. This is where you take a whole chicken and dip it in a deep fryer. Proud of this accomplishment you throw it under a heat lamp in a window display for passersbys to admire. When a customer comes and picks out a chicken they like they do them the dishonor of throwing this fried chicken back into the deep fryer so they can be sure that it had soaked up as much oil as possible.

It took us the better part of an hour and a half to find a small pocket of open shops where we descended into a McDonalds. I don’t make a habit of eating at a McDonalds, but even with my boy scout supply of jerky on me I was ravenous at this point. The meal wasn’t precisely filling but acted as a good form of negative reinforcement for my stomach. That chunk of indigestible flour oil and sugar will teach you to get hungry when not fed!

Seoul on lunar new year is a little like going to an amusement park on a slow day. Sure its great that you get to see all the attractions but the hustle and bustle is half the fun. By late into our first day the lack of excitement in the general populace was palpable.

We headed towards Seoul Tower, which was a nice little taste of home. A large building that’s basically a radio tower tricked out to be a tourist spot. The only real difference between this one and the CN tower is that this one was smaller. They tried to cover that up by putting it on top of a mountain they didn’t build but my keen eye wasn’t fooled. The Seoul tower was overpriced (don’t take the cable car, its not a long climb) and kind of boring but much like the CN Tower you’d feel a little denied if you hadn’t climbed it.

which side of the window am I on? the answer will not surprise you

After that we went to check out one of the highly recommended areas called “Itaewon”. We took a long walk there and saw a bunch more palaces and memorials that were all closed up for the weekend. Itaewon to Canadians must be what Chinatown is to the Koreans back home. It is a long stretch of street lined with bars clubs and shops all catering to Americans. Seoul has a lot of US soldiers there, and a fair number of ESL teachers. Also unlike Busan it has a lot of foreign tourists as well. Itaewon would be a horrible place for an American tourist to visit (or as it turned out two Canadian ESL teachers) since it really has little Korean influence at all.

Much more than Busan Seoul in general could be managed with only a few words of Korean in your mental pocket. Itaewon requires none at all. Understandably some of the troops stationed in Korea have neither the time or resources to learn to speak Korean (on of those resources being an inclination). We ordered dinner at a sports bar where the bartender and waitress seemed completely fluent in English and everyone else seemed like a rowdy soldier or a rowdy ESL teacher. Even ordering in my broken Konglish seemed to impress the staff with my effort. I do notice that the Seoul dialect of Korean is far easier to understand than Busan, which is what I was told long ago. Probably like the difference between Scottish and American. In any case Itaewon isn’t a bad place, just not our scene and we left shortly.

We took a long long walk back to the area of Beewon Hostel, eventually falling into a small pocket of liveliness. We were approached by two men on separate occasions, who we initially thought were club promoters but turned out to be pimps with bad marketing skills. We settled in at a place called WaBar, which is a western chain bar in Korea. We were served by a shy waiter with a name tag that said ‘Mulder’ on it. When I actually called him by this nickname he giggled like a little girl and scurried away.

Part 2 Soonish...