21 January 2007
With the arrival of our friend Ben from OBC, who lived in Korea for a year, Becca and volunteered him to show us around Seoul. So today we went to meet Ben in Seoul, taking the subway from Dungducheon to Seoul and spent the day eating and walking around a small part of the city.
Let's start with the subway - what an adventure that is in any city let alone other countries, especially countries that don't use Roman letters. But, to our credit, Becca and I did manage to get on the subway after some debate as to whether it was the train or not since when you're as far from the city as we are, it's above ground. It takes about an hour and a half to get to the heart of Seoul on the subway and only costs about $1.75 as apposed to the bus that takes over two hours if there's traffic and coasts $5! So, apart from the man on the subway who was dressed as a walking thrift shop, the subway was convenient and not too bad.
Our first meal of the day consisted of local Korean cuisine. I had Bibimbap which is a rice bowl with different vegetables, and mom I even ate the crab that was in it!!! We also had Kimchi which is basically cabbage with spices - red pepper to be exact, so it's pretty spicy, smells very strongly (you can smell it on everyone's breath and clothes), but if you have some good Kimchi, it tastes pretty good. I can't remember the name of the other dish we had which was kind of like, hot dog soup I guess is the best way to describe it. It was different cuts of pork, but mainly hot dog, in a spicy broth and roman noddles. All the food was pleasantly tasty and the restaurant was very fun. We sat at wooden tables each one with a fan that pulls down to the table to suck up the spattering grease since most of the dishes sit on grills at the table.
After our lunch we walked through one of the more touristy districts, one of the few places in Korea that sells post cards! It was fun to look around that the more common sale items. There are a lot of little knick-knacks people sell here - the most popular is charms that you attach to your cell phones, I'm still not sure about that one. We saw a guy 'hammering' rice, I guess he was making rice cakes or something. We walked through this mall that always displays some type of original art (that's what all the umbrellas are about, and the 'rose stairs'). There were some pretty nice looking shops, a lot of shops where you can buy ties for some reason that's very big here.
In the middle of our walk we sat at a tea house drinking Chinese tea?! go figure. One was "From the Land of Beautiful Women" but we're not sure our waitress meant that was the name of the tea. It was a lot of fun though, we sat on the floor which are heated in Korea. If you get dried herb tea there is a whole process to get it into the cups that are smaller than shot glasses. First you poor hot water into the cups to heat them up, then poor that water in this ceramic tile. Next you put some herbs in the tiny little clay pot, and for some reason poor the first batch out. Then after that the tea water goes into a larger glass porer, then from the glass one into the tiny shot glasses, so it was quit an ordeal to have a shot of tea, but so worth it.
After tea we walked along the Hangang River. Ben said it used to be really muddy and not very nice to be around, but they've since put in sidewalks along the side and cleaned it up, so it was a lot of fun to walk along. To get to the area we had dinner at we walked through more of a down town area. It was fun to see the tall buildings with hundreds of shops, all advertised by neon signs.
We had BBQ at a tent restaurant which we discovered is so authentically Korean, we were ignored and no one wanted to sit near us because we were the only non-Koreans. The restaurant was a lot of fun though, and the food was great. The tables have these little grills in them and you get what ever meat you want, we had bacon, and cook it yourselves. Eating utensils in Korea consist of flat metal chopsticks (which are much harder to use than round ones) and a spoon, so to cut the meat they give you scissors. It was a little different. To eat BBQ here, you take a piece of lettuce, put a piece of meat on it with what ever veggies you want, and then the BBQ sauce which is not like BBQ sause in the US in taste, but definitely can't be forgotten.
A couple interesting other notes from the day; Becca and I stick out like you wouldn't believe, why you ask? Apart from our white skin and round eyes. Well, during the winter girls here do not wear pants, they wear mini skirts with tights or thigh high socks, then shin high boots. We have yet to see anyone besides the two of us with winter hats on and the women wear trendy tweed coats, no ski jackets here. So apart from not being able to speak, read, or understand any Korean, we look obviously out of place.
The shopping districts here are also so named for what they sell. Today we walked through the jewelery district, the tourist district, the hard-wear store district, and the university district. It's funny that you can walk a mile down a road and pass nothing but garage sized hard-wear stores, then turn the corner and see nothing but jewelery stores.
All in all though, it was a very fun day because I feel like we saw a lot more of Seoul with Ben than we would have ever seen by following a book. We ate good food and Becca and I were brave:) We've made plans for future trips, Ben has a lot of things he's excited to show us, so hopefully we'll have plenty of time on the weekends to go explore Seoul and the rest of Korea!
Let's start with the subway - what an adventure that is in any city let alone other countries, especially countries that don't use Roman letters. But, to our credit, Becca and I did manage to get on the subway after some debate as to whether it was the train or not since when you're as far from the city as we are, it's above ground. It takes about an hour and a half to get to the heart of Seoul on the subway and only costs about $1.75 as apposed to the bus that takes over two hours if there's traffic and coasts $5! So, apart from the man on the subway who was dressed as a walking thrift shop, the subway was convenient and not too bad.
Our first meal of the day consisted of local Korean cuisine. I had Bibimbap which is a rice bowl with different vegetables, and mom I even ate the crab that was in it!!! We also had Kimchi which is basically cabbage with spices - red pepper to be exact, so it's pretty spicy, smells very strongly (you can smell it on everyone's breath and clothes), but if you have some good Kimchi, it tastes pretty good. I can't remember the name of the other dish we had which was kind of like, hot dog soup I guess is the best way to describe it. It was different cuts of pork, but mainly hot dog, in a spicy broth and roman noddles. All the food was pleasantly tasty and the restaurant was very fun. We sat at wooden tables each one with a fan that pulls down to the table to suck up the spattering grease since most of the dishes sit on grills at the table.
After our lunch we walked through one of the more touristy districts, one of the few places in Korea that sells post cards! It was fun to look around that the more common sale items. There are a lot of little knick-knacks people sell here - the most popular is charms that you attach to your cell phones, I'm still not sure about that one. We saw a guy 'hammering' rice, I guess he was making rice cakes or something. We walked through this mall that always displays some type of original art (that's what all the umbrellas are about, and the 'rose stairs'). There were some pretty nice looking shops, a lot of shops where you can buy ties for some reason that's very big here.
In the middle of our walk we sat at a tea house drinking Chinese tea?! go figure. One was "From the Land of Beautiful Women" but we're not sure our waitress meant that was the name of the tea. It was a lot of fun though, we sat on the floor which are heated in Korea. If you get dried herb tea there is a whole process to get it into the cups that are smaller than shot glasses. First you poor hot water into the cups to heat them up, then poor that water in this ceramic tile. Next you put some herbs in the tiny little clay pot, and for some reason poor the first batch out. Then after that the tea water goes into a larger glass porer, then from the glass one into the tiny shot glasses, so it was quit an ordeal to have a shot of tea, but so worth it.
After tea we walked along the Hangang River. Ben said it used to be really muddy and not very nice to be around, but they've since put in sidewalks along the side and cleaned it up, so it was a lot of fun to walk along. To get to the area we had dinner at we walked through more of a down town area. It was fun to see the tall buildings with hundreds of shops, all advertised by neon signs.
We had BBQ at a tent restaurant which we discovered is so authentically Korean, we were ignored and no one wanted to sit near us because we were the only non-Koreans. The restaurant was a lot of fun though, and the food was great. The tables have these little grills in them and you get what ever meat you want, we had bacon, and cook it yourselves. Eating utensils in Korea consist of flat metal chopsticks (which are much harder to use than round ones) and a spoon, so to cut the meat they give you scissors. It was a little different. To eat BBQ here, you take a piece of lettuce, put a piece of meat on it with what ever veggies you want, and then the BBQ sauce which is not like BBQ sause in the US in taste, but definitely can't be forgotten.
A couple interesting other notes from the day; Becca and I stick out like you wouldn't believe, why you ask? Apart from our white skin and round eyes. Well, during the winter girls here do not wear pants, they wear mini skirts with tights or thigh high socks, then shin high boots. We have yet to see anyone besides the two of us with winter hats on and the women wear trendy tweed coats, no ski jackets here. So apart from not being able to speak, read, or understand any Korean, we look obviously out of place.
The shopping districts here are also so named for what they sell. Today we walked through the jewelery district, the tourist district, the hard-wear store district, and the university district. It's funny that you can walk a mile down a road and pass nothing but garage sized hard-wear stores, then turn the corner and see nothing but jewelery stores.
All in all though, it was a very fun day because I feel like we saw a lot more of Seoul with Ben than we would have ever seen by following a book. We ate good food and Becca and I were brave:) We've made plans for future trips, Ben has a lot of things he's excited to show us, so hopefully we'll have plenty of time on the weekends to go explore Seoul and the rest of Korea!
1 comment:
This blogging is new to me, so not sure if you'll get this. Might as well try some new cusine, if you don't know what else to do. Sounds as if no one expected you. Then one day they'll say "Lt. Ebbets, where the hell have you been?"
I'll try to check this blog(?)periodically. You really are bored and/or you're a much faster typist than I am.
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