3 Days in Seoul, South Korea

I was fortunate enough to celebrate my 30th birthday in Seoul, South Korea.  Yes, I did all the celebrating the week of my birthday, as shown in the last post, and then a week later we took a quick hop across the Sea of Japan to Seoul.   It's just a 2 hour plane ride and the US has a nice hotel for military families at the Yongsan base in downtown Seoul.  Although it's extremely close to North Korea, it is a beautiful and fun city.  I would love to go back many more times to explore different parts of the city as well as see more of the country.  Seoul is the second largest metropolitan area in the world (Tokyo is the largest!) and is home to over 26 million people, including over half of South Korea and over half a million international residents. 

  When flying into Seoul, the first thing I noticed was all of the highrise apartment complexes.  There are so many clusters of identical buildings.  I guess that's what you have to do when everyone wants to live in the city!  The fancy ones have rooftop gardens, rec areas and pools, but many outside of downtown have blue or green roofs.  I wondered why this was, so I did some Googling and found this, thanks to someone who goes by Gayaa.

During President Bahk's drive for modernization in the 1970s, many farmers were still living in old thatched-roof houses and were then encouraged to adopt improved solid slate roofs. The farmers thought the grey slate was too ugly and wanted to paint them a brighter color. During the days of the yangban, only the very wealthy were allowed to have a blue tile roof, to signal their status in life. This is why many of the farmers chose to paint their slate roofs blue.

I found this picture online (theatlantic.com). This is the Gangnam (yes, as in Gangnam Style) area, which is part of downtown Seoul.

I got the impression that this is what the suburbs of Seoul are like.  Instead of acres of subdivisions, acres of matching highrises.

The Dragon Hill Lodge, a huge US military hotel.  It's a lot cheaper to stay here than the other hotels in the area.  We didn't explore the rest of the base, but I'm guessing it's pretty similar to the rest I've seen.   It's in the Itaewon area of the city, just north of the Han River.

We arrived around 7pm and got lost on the way to the hotel from the bus stop.  That wasn't too fun since we were carrying luggage, but we got to see some back streets and get a little feel for the city.  The next morning we headed out and bought a ticket for the sightseeing bus.  It makes a big loop across the city, stopping at most of the popular sights.  For just $12 we could hop on and off all day.  

Namsan Mountain is home to the Seoul N Tower. 

The bus drove us most of the way up the mountain and we walked the rest.  It was a popular destination for field trips.  The leaves were just starting to change when we were there. 

At the base of the tower is an observation area that is home to thousands upon thousands of locks.  They're chained all of the fence and even on other statues so that it looks like a tree of locks.   They are encouraged, but only in designated spots.  You're supposed to bring a lock and write you and your significant others name or a wish on it.  We forgot to bring one and didn't feel the need to buy one there.

Locks, old and new.

We found a traditional restaurant down a side street that we liked.  Here are some of their offerings.

I believe these are served with every meal.  From bottom left and clockwise, cucumbers and some leaf in vinegary water, lettuce in a mayo, tofu with chili paste, something else with chili paste, and of course kimchi and rice.  I was a bit apprehensive, but I enjoyed them, especially the tofu.

Mmmmm, dumplings!

In Insadong, one of the shopping streets we visited.  I bought a painting here.

One of the reasons I loved Seoul was the mix of old and new, as pictured here.    This area, Bukchon, was really cool to walk around.  Lots of old houses and fun stores mixed together with some tiny staircases in between. 

Also in the Bukchon area, down a tiny staircase.  And no, I don't know why there are shoes on the wall.

How adorable are they?!?

I forget the name of this place.  It was pretty, but Korean names are hard for me.

What a cool building!

Changdeokgang Palace.  We arrived just as the Changing of the Guard ceremony was starting.

After our busy day on the bus tour, we did one of my favorite things on vacation, a food tour!  We did our tour with O'ngo Food Tours and it was awesome!  Our tour guide, T, was really fun and knowledgeable.  He took us to many different restaurants, grocery areas, and food markets, taught us some Korean drinking games, and shared city history and other fun info along the way.  If you've never taken a food tour, you should do so in the next city you visit.  They can be a bit pricey, but they take you to places that you would never go as a tourist, places where the locals dine.  By the end of the tour we were completely stuffed and feeling a lovely buzz from the drinks.  Fun fact that T taught me: You know those barbershop spinning red, white and blue polls?  If there are two of them right beside each other in South Korea, that means you can't get your hair cut there, but you can get some sex!  I also saw the only Starbucks that doesn't say "Starbucks" in English, because it's in a part of town that doesn't allow any English, only Korean, on business signs.

Real Korean BBQ!  Grill the meat and veggies, put some yummy spices on them, add some some kimchi, and wrap it in lettuce.  So delicious!  Also, we drank a local favorite drink, kojinkamrae--one shot of Coke, one shot of beer and one shot of soju.  Soju is to Korea as vodka is to Russia.  Jinro and Lotte soju are the first and third top selling alcohol brands in the world.

Fresh spices in a night market.

Again, I forget the name, but it's a soup with chewy thick rice noodles (my favorite part of the dish!), lots of seafood, cabbage, chili paste, and some other goodies, served piping hot at your table.

Lots of varieties of kimchi.  Turns out you can ferment anything and then add chili paste to it.

Kimchi pizza!  They basically mash it up and form a pancake with it.  Korean chopsticks are flat and almost always metal.  T said they are flat because it's easier to pick up bigger things like cabbage.  As a gal who uses Japanese style round chopsticks, I found it very challenging to use the flat ones.

Bryan makes fun of me for it, but I like taking pictures of signs. Here are some:

We spend some time in the Itaewon area, which is just a short walk from our hotel.  There was a lot of shops, as well as street vendors.  Knock-offs galore!!  Korea is also famous for the tailor-made clothing.  You can get a tailor-made anything:  dress, suit, tux, pea coat, shirt, pants, anything!  You pick out the fabric, the cut of the item, and every detail like buttons and stitching.  They measure you and then ship it to you. We found it tempting because the prices are actually really reasonable but we also found it to be a bit daunting.  So many choices!  I also found an awesome pottery store.  I bought 3 little bud vases, but I wanted to buy the whole store. 

If you're ever in Seoul and want an amazing breakfast go to The Flying Pan Blue.  Bryan got a middle-eastern style breakfast, hummus and some amazing soup goodness to to dip the toast in.  I got Berry Berry French Toast with ricotta. 

We spent a large part of another day on a tour of the De-Militarized Zone, the border of South and North Korea.  It was so strange but a really cool experience.  I took lots of pictures, so I decided to make it it's own entry. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about Seoul. If you ever get the chance to go, do it!!