A trip to Seoul

Ace and I just got back from a lovely weekend in Seoul. We decided on a whim on Thursday that it was time for a little adventure, so first thing Saturday we hopped on the KTX (fast train) and we were in Seoul in just an hour and 40 minutes, even though Seoul is pretty much on the other side of South Korea! I tried to stay conscious for our speedy trip, but I slept through most of it. Ace said I didn’t miss anything too scenic- except for some farms, the trip was cities and towns everywhere.

Once we got into Seoul, we took the subway (there are 12 different lines, but it’s amazingly user-friendly, considering) to a market crammed with everything from socks and $5 jeans to wooden masks, tea sets and ginseng candy. I was thrilled to find a hippie shop (I haven’t found one in Daegu) so I could replace my very ratty Thailand purse and get some fun earrings. After enjoying the sights, crowds, and pungent smells of cooking silkworm larvae, we headed to the antiques market our lonely planet guide recommended.

Wandering around Seoul was a very welcome change of scenery- it was great to see a skyline other than the lego-landscape of Daegu, and there were lots of lovely fountains, art installations, etc. I definitely think it would be fun (but expensive) to live there- it seems like there’s tons of interesting art exhibits, concerts, and cultural things going on.

I had a heyday at the Antiques mall- it’s a good thing most of the shops are closed on weekends, or who knows how much money I could have spent. The mall consisted of two or three old buildings absolutely stuffed with old trunks, carved wooden windows, tea sets, carved tables, Chinese medicine cabinets, buddhas, etc. I was thrilled to see some traditional stuff- it seems like Korea is so modern that it’s hard to find any souvenirs more interesting than cell-phone danglies and 4-inch heels. Everything in those musty buildings was gorgeous and interesting. I left with a red-cloth lantern, an red antique Chinese jewelry box with birds painted on it ( a present for someone), and, my favorite, Ace and I’s first piece of art. It’s actually Thai, a framed painting on cloth of a view from the river of Wat Arun, a temple in Bangkok that we visited. with a dragon boat passing in front of it.

After the mall, we lugged our stuff to a very cheap and blah, but clean, little motel. We dropped off our treasures and wandered around our area in search of some non-Korean food, just for a change. We settled on Outback and had a very homey dinner, then searched in vain for a jazz club I really wanted to check out. I think the cabbie dropped us off in the wrong district, cause it was nowhere to be found, but we did stumble across a board game café, which was brilliant. Funky chairs and tables were filled with young people sipping tea and coffee and playing rented games. The lettering on all the games was in Korean, though, so we settled on Jenga.

Then we headed to a theater and watched “Love in the Clouds”, which was ok; it was really nice watch a movie on the bigscreen, though. We haven’t done that since our first weekend in Daegu! I also enjoyed the fountain Coke Zero in the concessions stand- the only place you can get that around here is Costco , and if you know me at all, you know how I feel about diet fountain colas  After a night in our little room, we got up and headed to Itaewon, which is the foreigner district. We hit some import grocers and loaded up on little luxuries that we can’t find here- couscous, real oatmeal, tomato soup, edemame, mac and cheese, decent incense, etc. I’m pretty thrilled with all of those finds. Ace was also able to find some shoes there that fit him, which was exciting. There were people from all over the world and an amazing variety of restaurants- Middle Eastern, Moroccan, Italian, Mexican, African, Indian… I definitely want to go back soon and do some serious eating.

After spending a small fortune at the grocery stores, we went to the best-preserved palace in Seoul- it’s a world heritage site, and was occupied by members of the royal family until the 1980’s, I believe. It was lovely, but I was freezing during the hour and a half outdoor tour. One interesting part was seeing how the original floor heating system worked- a sort of crawl space beneath the building where charcoal was lit, and a serious of vents that carried the hot air around under the rooms, with a little door at the opposite end where you could scoop the ashes out. Brilliant! After the tour, we had dinner at a little Italian place and took the fast train home. All the getting lost and wandering around that I didn’t bother to write about made it a very tiring trip, but we had a great time. It was also nice to do the backpacker tourist thing for just a night- we ran around like crazy but knew we’d be sleeping at home on Sunday. We’re definitely hoping to go back soon.