We arrived in Seoul at 5:20 am, after a sleepless flight (well, I was sleepless, anyways!) We tried to book a tour to see the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone between North and South Korea ) with no luck. Even though the website and the flyer at the stand said no reservations required, they insisted they needed one. Since the tour ends at 2, there just won’t be enough time tomorrow so we’re out of luck.
The cab ride from the airport was interesting on many levels. First, because he was by the the craziest driver we’d had yet! I was expecting Seoul to be a larger, more modern Hanoi, and couldn’t have been more wrong. It is very modern, but was not dirty or polluted at all! The air is clean and it’s very nice. It took an hour to get to the hotel. The lobby is very cute, and we left our bags and set out for breakfast and especially coffee! We ate next to the hotel then headed out to visit the palaces. On the way we came across an interesting place and stopped to check it out. It’s the Namsangol Traditional Korean Village, a cluster of old homes stands. It is five traditional Korean houses from the house of Yeong-Hyo Bak, one of eight great families in Seoul that were moved into the traditional village.
We then headed out to visit the palaces. We’ve been finding Asian culture really interesting in many ways. First, the concept of personal space. There is none. And coming from the US, I find myself often bristling when people are pressed up against me, or aim at me walking, particularly when there’s plenty of room around. It’s interesting to see this concept play out in the homes and shops as well. Walking around Seoul, we didn’t see one shop of a certain kind, but multiple shops in clusters, or neighborhoods. There was the clothing area, the textile area, the sewing machine parts area, pet store area and even a prosthetic store area! We laughed as occasionally a ‘rebel’ store would appear, like we saw a blinds store in with the textiles area. What a shock!
Houses were also clustered with apartments in a grouping, and nice homes. My friend read that the homes were numbered as they were built and as a result can be out of sequence, and we saw several instances of that. We walked down a street and saw house 29, then house 84 then house 66.
We had a couple of funny bathroom ‘incidents’ that I’ll share as well (and several that I won’t, for decency sake!) First, I’m noticing that women simply do not shut bathroom stall doors! It’s the strangest thing but quite a few times now I’ll go into a stall only to find it in use and the lock wasn’t closed, and often the door isn’t even shut! Then my friend had a funny occurrence when he walked in a bathroom and there were two buttons, a red and a green. Green opened the door, and he went in, then hit the red door to close the door. Immediately the lights went out. Completely! He finally found the green button to open the door, but never figured out how to get the lights on with the door shut. Given my findings with the women, maybe that’s why they don’t close the doors? I don’t know.. Then in the ladies’ bathroom I found an ‘etiquette alarm’. Intrigued of course, I pushed the button and heard a fizzing sound then smelled a slightly floral fragrance.
We got to the first palace which was closed today, a place called Changedoekgung Palace, so headed to the second and got quite lost. We tried but could not find a good map, and given that the signs are in Korean characters, we had no clue except for a general direction. At one point we needed to cross a major road and couldn’t find a crosswalk anywhere! Thanks to the kindness of strangers! A jolly man with a bike helmet waved to us, beckoning us to follow him. He took us to a small elevator and we followed. When we got down, he pointed us in a direction, then waved goodbye and went in the opposite direction. Apparently there is underground crossing for major streets! It was very nice of him to show us the way!
We then came across a market, and wandered around a bit. Just like on the street there was the clothing area, the textile area, the food area.. and we saw lots of rather interesting things including pig’s snouts, bugs (for eating) and some various animal body parts that I have no idea what they were, nor do I care to consider it for any longer!
We wandered through a large college campus then decided to stop at a Starbucks for some caffeine and warmth. We then headed back out and were told to take the subway to the palace. Interestingly, we haven’t seen a ton of people walking, given the size of the city. We figured out the subway system, which is actually quite decent, and found our way to the Gyeongbokgung Palace. We bought tickets and ran in just as some brightly dressed people were marching in to some beautiful traditional music. We then took a one hour tour with a Korean gal who was funny and very good. The palace is a small part of what it once was, and consists of over 20 buildings beautifully painted, along with some very nice and large courtyards.
I was quite exhausted by then but did catch a good bit of the tour, which was very good. We then did a quick walk-through of some of the two free museums next to the Palace including the Folk Museum and the National Palace Museum of Korea, then headed back to the hotel for a power nap. We realized that we were not sure exactly where the hotel was from the subway perspective, so took a cab back. After our nap and a quick shower, we were on our way to the Insadung neighborhood, known for its restaurants, shops, galleries and other stores. We walked it end to end twice looking for a restaurant that my friend had found recommended by several sites online, but never found it. We asked several people too!
He bought a beautiful painting on rice paper, and I ended up buying two rings that were really interesting, one silver and onyx, and one that is actually tin and a green stone (jade?) Both are quite different looking. We were starting by then and found a really good restaurant and ordered quite a meal including Bibmbap (sp?) a very traditional Korean dish of a fried egg, rice, sprouts, carrots, greens and beef. It’s laid out beautifully and you mix it all together with some hot sauce. It came in a cast iron bowl and the rice was crispy in parts from cooking. We also got potato pancakes, which had a beautiful herb leaf of some kind, and pork wraps. The pancake was very good and the pork wrap was so-so.
We headed back down the street and decided to go to a tea shop to unwind. It was very cute and quaint and smelled wonderful. He got a Traditional Medicine tea which was quite powerful. It had nuts and dried fruit floating in it, and I thought it tasted of strong liquor. Mine was Five Taste Tea, which turned out to taste very much like plum tea (which I’m not a fan of, unfortunately.) We got green tea rice cakes which were ok dipped in the tea, and they brought some interesting cakes that had the texture of cheetos mixed with a slightly sweetened sticky rice.
It got quite cold with the sun gone, so we decided to call it a night and headed back via the subway. On the way out we stopped to look at a stand that we noticed earlier making some kind of thing we weren’t sure of. Turned out it’s a candy-like thing called Dragon’s beard or King’s beard. It’s tough to describe but has a wispy white coating that is the consistency of a very fine string and flaky over a textured nutty-like center. When we asked what it was, the guy opened one from the freezer to let us share it and boy it was great! We’re definitely stopping back there tomorrow! He asked where we were from and we answered ‘the US’ and then he asked what state and we said “Arizona”. He smiled and said “Diamondbacks!” Which is the baseball team in Phoenix. It was so funny that he knew that. Then he asked my friend "Are you a handsome and famous American movie star?" We laughed out loud, and I commented that now I was going to have to deal with him and his swelled head! We took a picture of him and assured him we’d be back.
I did forget to mention, I believe, that not only were we offered marijuana in Hanoi, but we were offered marijuana and opium in Siem Reap, Cambodia! So far, no offers in Seoul and we leave mid-afternoon tomorrow!
Good night all.. last morning tomorrow then we head out for the long flight home!
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