If you ain't got Seoul, you ain't got nothing - Part 1

Greetings,

As we mentioned before, Chuseok is the second most important holiday in Korea (after Lunar New Year) and it's famous for three things: traditional food, family gatherings, and bad traffic. It's common sense in Korea that unless you have to leave your house, you should avoid traveling during Chuseok at costs. In fact the newspaper here estimated that over 40 million people were on the roads during the holiday (keep in mind that the population of Korea is 60 million). With this information in mind, we decided that Chuseok would be the most opportune time to head to Seoul.

On Tuesday morning we woke up at dawn (and this time we actually did...oddly enough it was the first time we have seen the sun rise in Korea) and began our five hour journey half-way up the peninsula to the world's third biggest city.


Upon arrival in Seoul we were greeted by our Korean host and new friend, Soon Tae. He immediately introduced us to Seoul by backing into a car in the parking lot. His driving would be a source for many jokes over the next several days. Luckily for us he's a good sport. Through pure determination, a little luck, and the watchful eyes of God, we made it across town to our hotel with no further incidents.

Imagine Hell, a garbage dump, and New Jersey, and you have our hotel. Because this is a PG site, and because Shayne's grandparents read this, we've decided not to publish any photos of the actual hotel, only the staircase leading up to it. Let's just say that after being passed by a prostitute on her way out, Soon Tae cancelled the majority of our reservation and informed us that we would now be staying at his place. If it wasn't for him, we'd both be in tubs of ice with our kidneys missing right now. All to save 10 bucks a night too. This wouldn't be the last time Soon Tae would come to our rescue.

Soon Tae wanted us to experience traditional Korean food so he took us to a small restaurant in a trendy district for what would be the best Korean meal we had experienced yet (a title, sadly, that it would only hold for 48 hours). The meal was at least six courses and contained everything from BBQ pork, to kimchi, to seaweed, and dozens of other side dishes.

Here's a picture of Jo realizing that traditional Korean food is a wee bit spicy. All we can say is thank god for Mul.

After dinner we set out for Insadong which is Seoul's artisan market. Korean cities are filled with markets selling everything you can imagine but this one was especially interesting.

The streets were filled with thousands of people shopping for everything from pottery to paintings to toys. Thankfully we are finally getting used to Korea's crowds and becoming experts at elbowing and pushing. Insadong was definitely the cleanest market we have visited in Korea and was a cross between Rodeo Drive and Granville Island.

We were lucky enough to stumble upon this man making rice cakes the old fashioned way. In Canada a stocky, sweaty man walking around with a giant mallet would be cause to run; in Korea it's cause to take a photo.

The rice cakes are unlike anything available in Canada and are a cross between dumplings, candy, and chewy pieces of dough. They are also filled with a mishmash of things ranging from sesame to beans to Kimchi (ok maybe not Kimchi, but they should be).

The highlight of Insadong was a small toy museum. It's probably the only place on earth where you can stand next to Darth Maul while being mere feet away from machines dispensing squid snacks. Although most of the toys weren't that old there was an original GI Joe doll that spawned a lot of debate about who would win in a fight between Commander Cobra and Astro Boy (an Asian favorite).

One of the most treasured sites in Seoul is Mount Namsan which is famous for its night time view of the city and for Seoul Tower. There are only two ways to the top, a cable car for the lazy people, and a nice healthy walk up for everyone else. We would love to tell you about how great the walk was...but as you can see:


They really crowd you into these cars. We were pretty surprised that Soon Tae had never actually ridden in the cable car before but then we realized that neither of us have actually visited Grouse Mountain or the Capilano suspension bridge before.



We hadn't heard of Seoul Tower before coming to Korea but it was definitely one of the highlights of the first day. It was built to be a communications tower but has since turned into the CN Tower of the East, meaning that it's now more of a tourist attraction than anything else. We wish that we could show you the skyline but it was dark and none of the photos turned out well. If you Google Seoul Tower you can find some pretty good shots though.


The next day we headed for Gyeongbokgung, the palace of the Joseon (pronounced Cho-sun) dynasty. While probably not the most impressive of Asian palaces, it gave us a good glimpse of high Korean architecture.


Outside the palace gates we were lucky enough to catch the changing of the guards. It's now just purely for entertainment, and we think the guards were dressed in polyester, but it was still a good display of Korea's former feudal glory.

A shot of a pagoda within the palace grounds. Shayne now claims that this must be the largest pagoda in the world.

(One of the tea pavilions in the palace grounds.)

After the palace, we were rejoined by Soon Tae (who had to be at school for the morning) and his friend Soung Young. We headed across town to see the Han River, when we came across what would be the highlight of the trip....for Shayne.


You can't really tell by the photo, but this thing is literally 6 feet across and costs 50 million won (about 50 thousand dollars), and it caused Shayne to stop dead in his tracks and start drooling. (Shayne's note - at a whopping 102 inches this is the 2nd biggest plasma tv in the world. The 1st was just built and is a kickass 103 inches. Thus my weekly claim of having seen the world's biggest or *cough*, the 2nd biggest something or other has finally been vindicated.)


The next stop was the Han River. There isn't too much to say about the river other then it was pretty beautiful and a river.

We then went exploring in Itaewon which is known as the only "American ghetto" in Korea. The area is famous for markets, foreigners, and prostitutes. You can buy anything here. We really mean anything too as we saw everything from Nazi medals to antique diving suits for sale. We decided to show you a nice picture of hats instead of a picture of prostitutes or Nazi medals though. It's our way of helping to make the world a better place, one photo at a time.

After a tiring hour of escaping merchants and suit designers (the area is famous for custom suits) we decided to break for dinner. Soon Tae and Soung Young wanted to show us two waygooks a proper Korean meal and took us out for some King Kalbi (BBQ Pork wrapped in lettuce).


The Seoul version of Kalbi was really good and in typical Korean fashion they refused to let us pay for anything. If either of them ever come back to Canada to visit we are going to have get a small loan to pay them back for everything nice they did for us.

After dinner we tried to go see a movie but the only thing playing in English was a movie about cartoon ants. We debated everything from going to a DVD room, to a coffee shop, to just going home, before we settled on going to a sauna. Korean saunas are big rooms that hold tonnes of people along with several smaller rooms that range from being air conditioned to being hotter than Angelina and Brad at a fetish party.

Saunas are social places in Korea and are a place people go to hang out, watch TV, and be with friends. Much different than the small sauna at the YMCA in Kelowna that was usually filled with creepy old dudes.


Haha, here's a great photo of Jo with our Korean friends. They insisted that we wear the towel hats and at first we were a little hesitant. After a while we fell in love with the style and soon had Korean children asking us to help make them the hats too. We plan to bring the look back to Canada with us, so make sure you have some clean towels ready for our arrival.



Here's a shot of Korea's National Assembly at night. Shayne thought it was a beautiful building and was one of the highlights of the trip for him. Jo thought it was a big building with a beanie on its head.

It's worth noting that even though the Koreans only elect 299 MPs their house of government looks much much larger than Canada's. It's also better protected (it was surrounded by guards, and citizens are only allowed super restricted access).

Well, that's the first two days of our trip.

We simply saw way too much to compress it into a single post. Those of you who actually made it though this post deserve a medal or at the very least a cookie or some Kim Bop.

Cheers

Shayne and Jo

P.S The conclusion of this riveting tale will be posted in a few days time.