Year 1 - Seoul

Howdy

Seoul is quite a city.

This weekend I decided I had to get away from Chongju for a while. So, I finally ventured to Seoul. I was supposed to go in with a friend, which would make the first experience a little easier. Unfortunately, as with the best laid plans of mice and men, it went astray.

Patrick had to go in earlier than he had planned. So, he went ahead and I said I would meet up with him. Luckily, it is VERY easy to get to Seoul. There are 2 types of buses to take. Economy and Excellent. Economy only costs 3000 WON, while express costs a whopping 7500 WON. ;) Needless to say I took the Excellent bus.

It was quite excellent. If our buses were this comfortable and fast in getting to a destination people would use them more often. The seats are pretty much the size and shape of 1st class seats on a plane. You have ample leg room. The only thing missing was a stewardess and snack cart. Of course there are enough food stalls at the bus station that you have no excuse for not having something to snack on, or drink. They play music, and have a large screen tv at the front. On the night runs they tend to show western movies, with Korean subtitles. It was a very comfortable and quick trip.

When I got to Seoul the first thing that struck me was the sheer size of the city and volume of people. The large apartment buildings all look pretty much the same. Like everyone uses Mr. Kim's Apartment Design 613 when building.

Seoul is one of the 5 largest cities in the world, with a population of around 11 million people. That is something you never forget when travelling within the city. ESPECIALLY on the subway! It is a good thing I am not claustraphobic or agoraphobic or I would have been screwed. As it was, I was roasting and praying to be back up in the "fresh" polluted air.

Taxis cost more than in Chongju, much more if you get stuck in Rush Hour traffic, but they are still infinitely cheaper than in Canada or the US. So, after riding the subways a bit we cabbed everywhere that was too far to walk to. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I spent some time in the underground arcades while I waited for Patrick and his girlfriend, Chon Soon, to show up. You can get around most business districts underground, and there are usually several sub levels, all connected with subway stops. This is really handy on rainy days. I browsed through an a book store that had an English section, and bought a couple of books. A novel (by John Grisham) and a Korean Cookbook. I was going to buy some of magazines until I saw the prices. Maxim and Stuff cost around 15,000 Won EACH! Needless to say, I quickly walked away from the magazine section.

I don't know what you find more of underground, retail shops or food shops. They are both all over the place. Since I hadn't eated yet that day (it was around 3PM Saturday) we all went out for supper once we met up. The restaurant was a Japanese style one, although I never knew pork cutlets (what Patrick had) in curry were a Japanese thing. (Actually the restaurant would be classed as a fusion restaurant, one which serves some traditional dishes and others that are a mix of cultures.) Chon Soon and I had the Udong soup, a type of seafood and vegetable (more of the latter) soup, made with udong noodles. It was delicious.

From there we started our subway sojourn. We ended up at the Korean Exhibition Plaza. There are a LOT of shops there, and an aquaruium which I will probably see on my next visit, it is a tad expensive to get in and wasn't calculated into my budget. One of the stores is a HUGE bookstore with a LOT of English books. Nothing that struck my fancy though. After spending a while there we went for a walk and got a cab to the hotel I picked.

Unfortunately, no one I talked to about hotels told me to book them in advance. Unless it is a holiday or there is a convention we just don't think of all hotels being full on a regular weekend. In Seoul they are. Without a reservation, no hotel. Luckily there are things called Yeogwhans. They are more like the old Motels, or rattier. There are some that are as good as a regular hotel, and some that are pretty disgusting. A one star hotel will run you around 40,000+ a night, which is where I wanted to stay. Yeogwhans run anywhere from 15,000 to 40,000 a night. We found one nearby that cost 35,000 and was pretty good. I FINALLY had a bath tub, and a bath! I even brought my eucalyptus oil with me. :) Next time I will reserve a room at the Kaya hotel though. For 40,000 a night you get a regular hotel room, with bath, plus the hotel has a sauna and restaurant. Mind you, where we stayed was good enough.

After freshening up, and after being in the hot crowded subway you NEED to freshen up, it was around 6:30 and we decided to go for supper. We went into Itaewon, a place beside the U.S. Army base, and where most Westerners go. There are lots of restaurants, bars, shops, and hookers. So many hookers that they have a hill where most hang out waiting for G.I.'s named after them. There are a lot of shops there, especially one selling illegal knock offs of brand names products. As quickly as their goods are confiscated they have more. I didn't really like Itaewon. My initial reaction would be to say there are too many Westerners. That wouldn't be the complete reason, there are too many weird and scarey Westerners there. It is where the dregs of all socieities seem to gravitate, Western, Korean, whatever. There are some nice places, but most you don't feel comfortable or safe in. You definitely do NOT take your kids there after dark.

For example, Patrick was talking about some of the skankier whores while we were walking to the restaurant. (He had our cab drop us of a few blocks from it for some stupid reason.) There is a spot on the other side of hooker hill where they all exhibit their "wares" and have little rooms to take you too. I don't know if I would talk about it in such a knowledgeable fashion with my girlfriend there, but he did. ;) We were on the wrong side of the street, and waiting to cross. I asked Patrick which way we were going. From behind this gravely voice (female) said: Across the street stupid. Both Patrick and I were about to turn around and say: Who the fuck asked you bitch? when we saw her. We both bit our tongue, she looked like one of the skanks he was talking about. A woman aged beyond her years, who looked like she would knife you if you looked too long and didn't pay. In a surprising fit of self-preservation we both actually kept our comment to ourselves.

We went to a great restaurant named the Thai Orchid. It serves, you will never guess, Thai food. It was fantastic. We all ordered an individual dish. (It sort of reminded me of going out for Chinese food in Dartmouth and people each picking a dish, like Ginger Beef, braised bean curd, yadda yadda yadda.) I picked a chicken and potato done in yellow curry; Chon soon ordered a beef dish; while Patrick got a chicken and cashew dish; plus we started with a mix of appetizers (some satay's, spring rolls, and shrimp). It comes with a huge dish of rice, and we got some wine to go with it. The service was very good too. We always had someone filling our water glasses, and they even have a wine steward who makes sure your glasses are full. Mind you next time I will NOT let Patrick do the wine testing. Drinking it like a shot isn't considered tasting. ;)

We were done dinner by 9:00, and it was time to sample the nightlife. Patrick had a hankering for some Guiness on tap, so we headed for the Seoul Pub. It was loud, and packed with mainly westerners. Yes, there were several there which we classified as scary. It was too noisy and too hot. We had a Guiness and then went looking for a better place. The next one we went into was a place called Queens. It wasn't a gay bar, but it was a hooker bar.

You are expected to buy drinks for the girls, and later for a fee they will do something for you. (Yes, sex is extremely easy to get here if you want to pay for it. Everything from home delivery (pussy on the hoof?) to whore houses, to bar girls. Prostitution is not illegal in Korea. It can be harder to get the legitimate way, but it isn't impossible. ;) ) We left there in search of more liquid pastures.

I am going to digress for a moment. There are a LOT of Christers to be found in Itaewon. For that matter, in Korea. On the highway outside Chongju you will find the large Jesus Saves signs you see in places in the U.S. In Itaewon, at night, they go looking for souls to save on the street corners. We passed a large group of Baptists with megaphones and a sound system singing psalms in Korean. Mind you they were singing psalms in Korean to passing Westerners, the majority of which don't speak ANY Korean. No one said they were smart. Just religious. I guess the Simpson's were right. In North America we get the Hari Krishna's recruiting and handing out pamphlets at some placews in Asia they have the Christians doing it.

Our next stop was going to be a popular place called Gecko's. On the way there we saw Pancho's, a Mexican place and decided to pop in. It was a good idea, because we spent the rest of the night there. The crowd was great, the music good, they had pool tables, darts, western style bathrooms, and GREAT margarita's by the pitcher. :) Overall a good night.

Today I was going to do all the tourist stuff. Hit the War Museum, Insadong, which is a LARGE outdoor art area. Any type of art or nick nack you want can be found there. I was up early, and decided to soak in the tub and watch some TV, since I have neither. At 9 I decided to wake Patrick up and called him to let him know I was going to the museum. He isn't much of a museum person. He asked me to wait 30 min and he would come. 40 min later I called and he had gone back to sleep. I told him to call me when he is up, I would be at the museum.

The War Museum is HUGE. It contains artificats and exhibits going back to before the Three Kingdom era of Korea. They even have replica's of some of the ships they used to defeat the Japanese centuries ago., the turtle ships. Most exhibits are in English and Korean. Except those where the Koreans lost. They are only in Korean. You can also get a device that gives you english aduio of what is in the exhibit. There is a HUGE area devoted to the Korean war.

Most westerners don't realize how close the North came to winning the war. The South was driven FAR south initially, to a small area around the port of Pusan. It wasn't until the amphibious landing at Inchon that the tide started to turn. Most westerners also don't realize just how close they came to winning. Pyongyang was captured and the North Korean Army all but defeated when the Chinese entered the fray.

Outside there are two displays that were interesting. One is a mix of statues and actual planes and tanks used during the war. While you can't go into them you can climb a walkway and look into them. The other display is more solemn. It is a roll of every soldier killed during the Korean war, whether they are Korean or from another U.N. nation. 17 countries, including Canada answered the call to help. Troops from Ethiopa and Columbia, as well as others fought and died to help South Korea.

Unfortunately, by the time I reached the outside exhibits, and Patrick joined me, it was raining heavily. This meant Insadong was out. :(

Since it was around 1PM we decided to get some lunch. Chon Soon was meeting us at a theater around 3 so we could see a movie. We ended up going to a food court and getting some western food. I had Popeye's chicken. Love those buttermilk biscuits. While we waited for her to show we had coffee, browsed the bookstore (Oh, this is all in one of those underground areas, near the bus terminal.), and played video games. We decided to see The One with Jet Li at 4. It wasn't bad, the fight scenes were good.

At 6 I wasn't hungry, but it was time to think about heading back to Chongju. So I left Patrick and Chon Soon so they could spend some time together and got the Excellent bus back home. Which is where I am now.

It was a good weekend. I wish it hadn't rained, but I will be going back to Seoul soon. I could never live there, too many people, but visiting is ok. Next time I will book a room at the hotel in advance, and spend less time in Itaewon. There are several other museums I want to see, as well as some old palaces. If I can find a scanner I will send copies of the pics out when I get them developed.

Take care

Flint

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You can probably notice a bit of an anti-Westerner/foreigner tinge to my comments. Some of it is because I was drinking the kool-aid then, some of it was and is justified.