i'm addicted to travel.
three friends and i spent thanksgiving weekend in seoul.
seoul is the second most populous city in the world next to tokyo. given the number of people crowded into its urban landscape and the lengthy japanese occupation of korea before world war ii, i shouldn't have been surprised at how much of seoul resembled tokyo, from buildings to trains. japanese food in seoul is as common as mexican food is in southern california. the japanese and korean languages even share some words, such as "kaikei" (check, as in, "check, please") and "jibun" (oneself).
on the flipside of these similarities there are of course a plethora of differences, and one of the most welcome of those was floor heating. why haven't the japanese imported this technology wide scale? despite being slightly warmer than my native oregon, winters in my area of japan are bitterly cold due to poor insulation and limited use of heating. our hostel in seoul offered a cozy escape from the cold outside. but i'm getting off track...
we arrived at incheon international airport late thursday night, and headed to our hostel (staykorea). after getting settled in, we explored the hongdae neighborhood around hongik university. there were street vendors everywhere, and i got my first taste of tteokboki, chewy, spicy, and sinus-clearing. the streets were strewn with trash, but mike's friend later assured us that student volunteer groups clean everything up in the morning. i wonder who cleans up the empty beer cups and take-out food containers cluttering up the streets of london.
in our wanderings through hongdae we stumbled across between the bars, an elliott smith tribute bar complete with paintings of his album covers on all the walls. the atmosphere was dark, velvety, and lovely. i like to think elliott would have approved. i signed the guest book with something like, "i was so happy to find home away from home away from home, here."
friday we woke up, had disgustingly sweet instant coffee at the hostel, and headed over to changdeokgung palace. here is mike, demonstrating our excitement:
it was cold, grey, and intermittently rainy, but the palace was lovely, and the changing autumn leaves incredible. we strolled around for several hours before the rain drove us indoors.
see? cold:
but pretty:
as i've finally realized, eating is as much an important part of any vacation as the sights are, so we followed our palace visit with a meal of bibimbap--rice, meat, veggies and spices stirred up together and served in a hot iron pot. mmm, crunchy.
the path to bibimbap:
after that we headed to the quiet insadong area, filled with little shops selling monk's robes, prayer beads, incense, and so forth--the place for all of your buddhist accessorizing needs. we stumbled across jogyesa temple:
COEX mall was our next destination; we were looking for a kimchi exhibition. we couldn't find it and were probably too late anyway, but we found plenty of other foods to sample and explored the ridiculously huge mall for an hour or two before making our escape to dongdaemun, where we checked out the gate and the market.
then it was time to eat again, and eat we did--nearly to explosion. we found a cheap, traditional kalbi restaurant with a table available. crowded around our grill table, we had a feast of juicy meat, doenjjang chigae (soup with tofu), salad, rice, and--or course--kimchi.
we walked around for a bit, had some gelato (how we fit it in our bloated stomachs i have no clue), and headed back to the hostel for some much-needed sleep.
the following morning, saturday, we woke up later than planned and headed off to gyeongbukgung palace, where we arrived just in time for the changing of the guards ceremony. the guards were impressively stone-faced. nate and risa were not (see below).
after touring the massive palace compound we headed over to city hall, grabbing a snack of chestnuts coated in deep fried dough from a street vendor on the way.
next stop: the very crowded myeongdong market. in hungry desperation, we ducked into a negmyun (reimen) restaurant for some cold spicy noodles. though delicious, it was perhaps the spiciest thing i have ever eaten--and i ordered the "mild" version! after eating as much as we could handle (in my case about half the bowl) we left to find something a little more friendly to fill our bellies with. we got some snacks from the market vendors, met up with a friend, and headed for seoul tower. we made it through the long line and up the mountain on the namasan cable car just as the sun was beginning to set.
and then it was another gate and another market, this time namdaemun -- which was burned down by an arsonist quite recently.
at the market we checked out the jars of ginger, metal chopsticks, and other wares for sale. there appeared to be alley restaurants where you could eat dog meat, but having heard they use cute big dogs like golden retrievers and labradors i didn't think i could stomach it. (terriers, on the other hand, i might dislike enough to actually try eating one. then again, maybe not.) instead we settled on some outside tables on the street where we snacked on grilled seafood and veggies.
and then? you guessed it: more food. we met up with mike's aunt, uncle, and cousins at a restaurant for some more more tasty kalbi and kimchi.
after that two of our party headed back to the hostel and we met up with two more, taking the packed last train to hongdae. korean bars serve gim (seasoned seaweed) with their drinks. yum. we explored the college bar scene, spent some time at an incredible no-shoes bar that was something like an art deco underground tunnel cave, had a late-night udon snack, and finished the night off at a two storey karaoke bar.
after not-nearly-enough sleep, it was time to head for the airport for our flight back to narita.
the trip was much, much, too short. like the food, korean life felt spicier than japan. the buildings were more colorful, the people more expressive, the sidewalks a little livelier. i want to go again.
