1st Weekend up in Seoul Part 2 of 2

I realize I am often far and away from my computer too much. There is so much still to see on this island and I got another heavy dose of greatness today visiting Hyeopje beach (blog post coming soon). Still, I do remain a bit faithful to this blog and will share the second half of my adventures to Seoul last weekend.... I left of on Saturday night.

As if was on the second day as well, the day began here, Starbucks. A bit of familiarity to take in before we embraced day two of the second largest metropolitan city in this world... Seoul.


So Sunday was a bit more leisurely. We decided that it would be great to venture from Julia's brothers house, over to a trendy artsy neighborhood that I simply can't remember the name at this time. Notes will be taken during the journey next time, I promise. Anyway, it was a bit unique in that many of the shopping (pedestrian only) streets were very non-Korean. Thing about living here is that you can tell you are in Korea wherever you are. Very traditional and somewhat boring architecture. Conrete slab walls with blue or orange colored roofs, often with black trim. You've seen it once and would think there is some special sale at the Korean equivilant to IKEA, only from permantent residences. There is certainly a trend in this society to conform, which I will always disagree with.

Shane made a great point that I new was developing somewhere in the back of my head, but had yet to express. Korea has many beautiful sights. Extraordinary natural reserves, tropical plant life, unique statues and ornate decorations everywhere. That is common. Though what I hate is that Korea does not take all astetics into account like I would think the Japanese might under their Feng shui lifestyle. There are brightly colored neon lights on the bathroom roofs in meditative parks, an unorganized system for cable/telephone wiring and a general lack of trash cans. This angers me because littering is not super un-common. Though it should be noted that there are people who go around and pick up the trash, it just would make a lot more sense if people simply put trash cans on the corners of streets.... right? I just think that Korea, not too long ago was stuggling simply to survive and I'm sure when your hungry, you don't care if you see a telephone over your head while you eat...

Strolling through the streets...

So back from that tangent, this nameless, neighborhood was a fantastic getaway. I felt like I could have been back in Paris with the small coffee cafe's with patio seating, window shutters and wooden details that baffled me on my realization that I kept having to repeat to myself, "yeah, I am in Seoul right now...".

Justin in this nameless neighborhood...


Great color in this paiting by the above artist...

There was quite a few museums to see here...

After browsing a few streets and an art gallery or two, we decided to enjoy a drink at a nice cafe while we waited to meet up with Julias family for lunch. Having an aching for some Korean Bulgolgi (thin beef marinated in a spicy/sweet sauce with onions and leeks) we all searched around for some special restaurant. After eating the meal with about 10 of us at the table, we strolled back again through the first shopping neighborhood that we were at on Saturday. I hate not having posted any of the names of these places, so I hope to get the rundown from Julia and re-edit these later.



Two of the cutest Korean kids I've seen...


We found a vintage toyshop/ musuem that we just had to enter. Finding dust covered lego sets from my past (the epic pirate ship!) and a collection of star wars action figures from the 80's we knew we had found our favorite store. We found these fantastic glasses that after the first picture with Rachel, I had my biggest laugh of the entire trip and we just had to all try them on.



Rachel and Shane looking fantastic...

Departing from there it was heading into the evening and we decided it would be best to head towards Gimpo airport and depart from Justin, Shane and Rachel. Knowing how easy and cheap it is to get to Seoul, I knew I will be back quite often. Figuring from my total expenses here and managing a large chuck of money to pay off some credit card debt, I think I can still manage a once a month vacation to visit me mates.

1st Weekend up in Seoul Part 1 of 2 or 3

This past Friday I flew up to Seoul with Julia to meet up and spend some good ol' times with me college mates; Shane and his girlfriend Rachel (who I finally met), Keifer, and Justin (our former roommate).

N. Seoul Tower...

Getting into Gimpo airport late on Friday, around 10:30 pm and meeting up with Keifer and Shane, we decided to head to Julia's brothers house to drop off some stuff and head out for the night. He was only about 5 subway stops from Gimpo, but being so late, we opted for a taxi. The subway in Seoul only runs until 11:00 pm, which makes absolutely no sense to me being that Seoul is the 2 largest metropolitan city in the world. Yeah its huge. Bigger than New York by more than 2 million. Thinking that something could be bigger than New York, I simply could not fathom.

Needless to say I didn't see nearly enough, though are days never lingered. I got completely unadequate sleep and drank way too much coffee in the mornings and a lot of beer/drinks in the evenings. Sleep was not a priority.

Julia called in early when we got there and we planned to come back to her brothers to sleep in his spare room later that night. Turned out, that in all of Seoul, Keifer lived in the exact same area. His was about a 10 minute walk from her brothers place. I mean, the crazyness of this just blew our minds.

Keifer, Shane and I headed out to the University neighborhood, some dong that I can't recal right now, and visited several bars and even a club. Not too much of my scene but the bars were lively with suprisingly many foreigners playing great music. We ate cheap street food, but it was all very delicious (chicken on a stick, fish cake on a stick, ddaapooki). We were out until a suprising 5:00am when we decided that should probablly be all for the night and headed back to Julias brothers and Keifers neighborhood. Kefier offered us his place to stay, but had nothing to offer. Julia never answered her phone (acceptable and 5:00 am), so we decided Keifers was better than nothing. What really got me is that he honestly had nothing to offer. He used one comferator for himself with no extra sheets to even offer he started throwing heavy sweaters and scarfs our way. Shane even ended up using a 500 case CD logic case to aid the mass of substance on his body. Yes that is a first and most likely last that will ever be used as a shelter remedy but I tell you it happened (picture was on Shanes camera as mine was at the brothers house).

The next morning we met at Starbucks and had breakfast and of course coffee. Having slept only about 4 and half house, we were not necessarily feeling wonderful, but we still had a bit of drinks I think in our system so we wanted to make sure we would not feel horrible the whole day. Julia explained that next door to Starbucks there is a pharmacy and we could get hang over remedies there. This baffled me again thinking that there was such a thing as an ailment for drunkness. Okay, why not. Korea, drinking is so built into the culture, everyone does it and basically any time. There is food that prevents hangovers. Drinks that prevent getting too drunk and not to mention any cases of fridges with it available to Take Out of just about any corner street in any city you go to. Paying under 5 dollars we got 3 things that we had to ingest at the pharmacy under a pharmacist. I kid you not. The sweet old lady had quite the laughs as Shane and I were blurry eyed and Julia was translating it all.

We headed out, first to a shopping neighborhood that I will enter the real name in here later, but is famous for many street artists, souvenier shops, oddball stores. Plus is close to the palace and makes for a fun excursion before we headed to the history lesson of the journey. I remember reading about this neighborhood before and hearing that this is the only place in Korea that every sign is in traditional Hangul and not in English. Even Starbucks, which was a big controversy is in Hangul. The only one of its kind not bearing the famous $-bucks font.


Starbucks in Hangul....Buddhist merchant selling flutes...

We met up with Keifer and headed to the big old palace (which will be edited later when I am not so tired). Big and beautiful and cheap as can be, we walked in and strolled the grounds. Taking pictures of the elaborat detail and ornate cherry blossoms, we leisurley made our way around. Waiting for Justin and Rachel to arrive, we got to taking photos. I had the mistake on shooting on too high of a shutter speed for a lot of it, so many of my pictures came out too bright. Luckily I realized it halfway through and changed it, but my best were lost to the light.

Finally meeting up with Justin and Rachel, we showed them around a bit and took more pictures. Feeling hunger pains, we opted to get something I have yet to have had in Korea that I knew I would miss: Mexican food!

Justin reunion!!
Us boys, inside of the palace where kings once stood...
Shane and Justin on a beautiful day inside the palace...



Where the kings entertained their guests. Not to shabby I would say...


Welcome Rachel! Her and Shane in front of the main room...


Perspective shot...



I'm guess Julia would not have been able to able to do this 700 year ago...



Look Keifer is smilling, finally caught in the act. Thats not even a beer in his hands...


This kid reminded me of a Korean Calvin. His imaginary cat, Hobbes was around somewhere...


Supposedly just a garden decoration...


View of the N. Seoul Tower from inside the palace walls...

Making our way to Itawon, we went to a Mexican restaurant that Keifer knew about. I had fajitas and a mojito, it way good, but certainly not great. Koreas like to put odd ingredients into Mexican food and call it the same thing, so I found carrots amongst my peppers and onions. Also the skimmped on the guaccamole and sour cream. Once was enough for me.

Inside the subway...



The proportions of Korean to American style Mexican food is rather laughable...
At a Canadian bar I forgot to mention...

We then decided it was time to do to Dandaemun, the largests shopping center in Seoul, possibly the world. 24 hours of bargaining your way into a good deal. Most of the places would carry small shirts, so finding a design I liked in my size proved to be challenging. There was some funny Konglish, but nothing picture worthy really. I did buy a couple shirts. One of a lego dude with an afro and another of a artful tree with a nice shadow to it.

This guy was simply cool. Buzzing around the streets on this...thing....


Itawon subway....
Dongdaemun manican that freaked us out...


The spinning beer offer from Julia...

Walked around for a while, bargaining and looking and having a good time doing it. Strolled off from there and took a long taxi ride back to Julias brother house/Kefiers neighborhood where we called it a night.

More to come later....so tired still....

Be Well ~

New Bike!

I finally discovered my slice of heaven within the pronounced 'island of the gods', Halla Cycles. After long searching, researching and fitting (as there is no such term for 'test ride' in Korea, I willingly slid my atm card through the machine and purchased my new bicycle.

A Giant, hailing from Japan. In fact, they don't sell this model in the US. It is the lowest end of the higest end bike they make, but by no means is it low end. It is a compostite aluminum with carbon components (fork (stalk), stem (freebie!! add on to do american size and status!, 120.00 dollar value, saddle post and all shimano integra components)and an all around sexy piece of art.

I got a fantastic deal on it too. It retails in Japan for about 145,000 Yen, with is roughly 1,450.00 US. Which in Korean is about 1.95 million, almost as much as my paycheck. However, this guy way awesome and has this model, which is last years, but who really cares, sitting around for a few months as it is a larger size (52 cm). I was able to to it up for 1.3 million, plus a bit more for some cages, a tool bag that is far better than my other one, toe clips. The owner through in another freebie light and he put on the seat post as I left as he told me it was too dark and unsafe to ride home without it. Julia was with me, so I obviously walked it home...mostly....but I wonder if he was thinking I would be ditching her for me newly acquired transportation....

It is shiny and beautiful and in noway will leave this apartment in the rain... and yes Zack, I am keeping in doors this time around....

Rode it around for a bit, but can't wait until daylight tomorrow to take it out for a spin to some new areas.

I also got a bike map of the entire island with many routes and labeled distances. All I need now it a miles to km converter on the ol iPod.