I've got Seoul.

Sorry it's been awhile since I've written - technology has not been my friend recently. My internet in my apartment was out over the weekend and now it is working but uploading pictures is acting funky now also. So, I got a few pics to go up, but the rest will follow later - I promise! check back in a few days and you can see some visuals! :]


In case you don’t know, Seoul is the largest city in South Korea and has about 11 million people all crammed in a very small geographical area. 

Friday.

With full backpacks, Friday evening, the four of us traveling together: myself, Amy (from Minnesota), Holly (from Canada) and Orla (from Ireland) met and took the slow train at 6:45pm from Daegu Station.  The slow train takes about 4 hrs and is less than half the price of the high speed train (KTX) so we opted for more hang out time and less money.  After an uneventful ride in surprisingly spacious and comfortable seats, we disembarked at Seoul Station at 10:45pm.  We were staying at a hostel that Amy had stayed at previously, Backpacker’s Space, and had to take the subway to get there.  The Seoul subway is insane. Here’s a picture of the subway map.

If that doesn’t give you heart palpitations, then think about 11 million people using this subway and pushing you around while you’re trying to figure out when you need to shove your way off at a stop. Yes, chaos.  

With only minor difficulties, we made it to our hostel, figured out our tourist plan of attack for the next day, and went to sleep.

Saturday.

In the morning after little sleep due to the orchestra of snoring surrounding me, we started a daily tradition of stopping at Paris Baguette (a reasonably priced bakery with pastries/bagels/etc that is all over SKorea) for breakfast and coffee.  With full bellies, off we went to Seoul Tower on Mt. Namsam.  From the street there was a weird slanted elevator which took us to a cable car that would bring us almost to the tower.  The area around the tower was beautiful with lots of trees, walking areas, and of course, people.  Forgetting to actually go UP in the tower, we wandered around, took lots of pictures, and then just headed back down the mountain. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll be back eventually!

Next stop was Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was beautiful. There were traditional guards doing demonstrations and I’m forever amazed at the artistry of the paintings on the buildings.  The surrounding grounds were also gorgeous with blooming flowers and trees with vivid green leaves.

Seoul Folk Museum was next but because we had just learned so much history at the palace, our attention was waning and it didn’t take us long to move on.  We found the large statue of General Lee.  He is very important to Koreans in that he played a major part in Korea gaining independence from Japan. 

By this point it was almost evening, so we took the subway to the area where the Lotus Lantern Parade was supposed to take place.  Holly had friends who are teachers and were visiting Seoul also, so they saved us great seats right along the street. The parade began and I kid you not, it lasted 2 hours and 30 minutes. It had everything from paper lantern floats to masses of people both in traditional dress or not depending on the group holding paper lanterns that they were giving out randomly to traditional musicians playing as they walked to dancers to baby Buddhist monks.  The parade was amazing.  It just kept going and going!

Exhausted from a whole day of being a tourist, we stayed for a bit of the festivities after the parade but then headed back on a very crowded subway back to our hostel.

Sunday.

Post Paris Baguette breakfast, off we went to Insadong. Insadong is a more traditional shopping area with lots of little shops and street vendors that basically sell a ton of souvenir type stuff.  After walking around there for a while we happened upon the Lotus Lantern Festival.  Little did we know that by the end of the day we would have “happened upon” a total of 4 festivals!  We walked through that, looked at some of their booths, and kept going.  Cheonggyecheon Stream was close, so we grabbed take out lunch from various places and sat by the water to eat.  The stream is beautiful with walkways on either side, places to wade in the water, and stones to walk across to the other side randomly.  It’s a very popular place to be and looked extra amazing with lanterns strung up in honor of Buddha’s birthday on Monday. 

As we meandered along the stream, we went up to street level and found yet another festival - the World Vision Charity Festival (don't know the official name, but they were raising  money!) it had performances on a huge stage, ways to donate, and I got a sweet KungFu Panda visor!

Next we stumbled upon the World Festival where they had booths with people/food/culture from around the world! Each booth was a different country and the smells of the food were amazing - totally reminded me of December Nights at Balboa Park in San Diego.  At the festivals we had gotten a map (which we lost but then eventually found another) that told us about other performances happening that weekend and were intrigued by some circus sounding ones that were taking place by the Han River at a large park.  Lots of walking later, we found it and after grabbing snacks, settled in to watch a performance that was free and outside.  We had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into.  Everyone was sitting down waiting when an announcement (in Korean of course) happened and everyone got up and started moving.  We found out that we weren't allowed to sit, just stand.  Baffled, we moved in closer to the stage and waited for it to start.  It was the weirdest performance ever. so hard to even explain.  

First, people (acrobats we assumed) were on scaffolding yelling and doing weird movements. 

Then, a shaved headed woman was carried through the crowd and hooked up to a crane where she was lifted high into the sky and flapped wings of some sort.

It gets better. She comes down, get's on this weird robot looking thing and starts going through the crowd. I kid you not, it was coming fast, changing directions, but don't worry, they had people with torches running through clearing the way.  All 4 of us got split up and I know we looked like chickens with their heads cut off.  Every time I tried to get out of the way I'm pretty sure I ran right back in the path of it. Once it stopped, adrenaline was flowing, we were reunited, and couldn't imagine what else the show would bring us.

But it wasn't over yet! next a large hamster wheel looking contraption was hooked up to the crane and lifted...with people inside. It spun in the air and then was slowly lowered to the ground in the middle of the crowd and yes, it started rolling through the crowd.  At least this time we were a little more mentally prepared for flames running at us and large metal objects but it was still scary! Maybe they did a warning in that Korean announcement in the beginning...but we'll never know!

To top it all off, people started walking in lines wearing what looked like white haz-mat suits and connected together by large cables. Surprise, surprise, they were hooked up to the crane! This time it wasn't scary and didn't cause me to have a nervous breakdown to watch.  Up and up they were lifted into the air and did some simple yet amazing movements while hanging there! During this final hurrah, there were musicians and someone singing a song that most of the performers seemed to know.  Finally, after very close fireworks, the show was over. We wanted an exciting weekend, and boy did we get one!

Monday.

Unfortunately, Monday brought a dreary morning but we had planned to meet some other friends, Brenton and Loren at Lotte World – a big amusement park that has a large portion of it under cover. However, after waiting 45 minutes in the line just for park admission tickets and we had only moved a few feet, we gave up on that idea and it turned into a relaxing, meandering day.  We ended up heading to Itaewon, which has the highest foreigner population in Korea. Emerging from the subway was almost culture shock in itself – most of the signs were in English! We found a Mexican restaurant and I had a chimichanga.  Definitely not up to Old Town Mexican Café in San Diego status, but came with a good size dollap of guacamole and sour cream, so I was a happy camper! Definitely will curb my craving for awhile.  At this point, it’s raining at a steady pace and the cold that I’d been fighting decided to hit full force.  We spent the rest of the day back in Myeongdong in familiar stores such as Forever 21 and H&M.  With lighter wallets and full shopping bags, we went back to the hostel and because I was feeling so lousy, I showered and went to bed as they went out for a late dinner.

Tuesday.

A pretty uneventful day. Took our time leaving the hostel, took our stuff to the lockers in Seoul station, and wandered around the area – a little shopping and then a late lunch at Bennigan’s.  Slow train back to Daegu left at 3pm and back to reality we went.

While I wouldn’t call our weekend in Seoul a restful one, I think it was definitely refreshing as a foreigner.  The high probability of encountering someone who could speak English was a welcome change of pace.  Even though I’m in South Korea and it still feels like a dream at times, life here is becoming routine and dare I say it, normal.  So it’s fun to get out of Daegu and experience something different yet again.  However, while I’m excited for my next adventure out of the city, I’ll also say what I’ve been saying since I’ve been here – every day in South Korea is an adventure in itself!