Surviving Seoul, South Korea

Dear Friends and Family,

We flew from Taipei, Taiwan to Seoul, South Korea, landing at Incheon International airport. We stayed in Incheon, which at just under 3 million people, is the third largest city in South Korea. After a long day of travel, we crashed just after arrival, around 11:30 pm. Our eighteenth floor hotel room overlooked a sea of pretty nondescript buildings. The next evening, we enjoyed a Korean style BBQ chicken dinner and tried soju, a popular South Korean rice liquor. Our time there was otherwise uneventful. Two days later we arrived in the capital city, Seoul, South Korea.

Seoul has a resident population of 10 million, but a daily population of around 25million! Compare this with Los Angeles at 4 million, or New York City, at roughly 8 million. We stayed in Dongdaemun, the hub of Seoul, like Broadway is the hub of New York City. There were numerous high-end fashion malls there, brimming with expensive name-brand and designer clothes, teeming with well-dressed, fashion-conscious shoppers. We rode escalators to the top of one such mall, “Doota,” and immersed ourselves in the madness. There were two floors just dedicated to perfumes, face creams, powder, and make up. There were gadgets to exercise the face, “Facial fitness Pao,” ($USD 224!) A large video demonstration made us chuckle. Just thirty seconds, twice a day, will firm your sagging jowls in no time! A salesclerk zipped over to assist us, but we just lifted our jowls in a polite smile and said “No, thank-you!” Another floor was filled with expensive giant sunglasses. There were floors with seas of shoes: platform shoes, flats, spiked heels, name brand tennies, boots up to your hoo-ha, rain boots, and sensible shoes. Rhinestones studded everything imaginable. There were practical business suits for men, and men’s suits that shimmered. There were jeans shredded in just the right places and dresses and blouses in every style . We were exhausted after exploring this trendy mall, but it was pretty trippy for a one-time visit.

The wholesale market malls are another side of this fashion frenzy. They are not fancy, but talk about busy! During the day, things are pretty quiet, but at night, the wholesale buyers/sellers PACK the stores. The halls are barely passable, piled high with stacks of bagged clothing, labeled and ready for pick-up and delivery.

Koreans seem really shy. They seldom made eye contact with us or with each other. They don’t usually even acknowledge the presence of strangers. Several times when sharing an elevator ride, Koreans stood facing a corner, rather than risk interacting with us. Locals apparently avoid us because they mostly do not speak English, and we don’t speak Korean. We met a few people willing and able communicate, including a young man fluent in English who was forced to return to Korea for two years of mandatory military service. We would have felt lonely if we didn’t have each other.

We enjoyed taking long city walks together. It was easy to walk along the 11 km Cheonggyecheon stream that runs through Seoul and find our way back to the downtown area and our Toyoko Inn hotel. The stream flowed during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), but was later covered by an elevated highway and neglected. The city of Seoul tore down the highway and restored the stream to reintroduce nature and remind residents of their cultural heritage. We saw lots of coy fish, magpies, the national bird of South Korea, and a beautiful grey heron. The stream is lined with a nice pedestrian path. There are large flat stepping-stones across the water here and there, bridges, statues, and decorated stretches of wall. It is well-lit and patrolled after dark.

Seoul was founded in 18BC, and was declared the capital in 1392, under the Joseon Dynasty. The ancient city was enclosed by a fortress wall and gates in 1396 to protect it from invasion. It has been restored and maintained for over 600 years. The Japanese almost completely destroyed it when they ruled Korea from 1910-1945. We hiked along the wall for a couple of hours, beginning at Heunginjimun Gate in Dongdaemun. We experienced a bird’s eye view of Seoul from Namsan Park. The fortress wall and gate are lit up at night. From Namsan, we could see most of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, DDP, a very famous building shaped like a gigantic silver slug. It is an eight story aluminum panel covered building that contains a library, a museum, convention center, design halls. It hosts numerous design exhibitions. There are futuristic statues around the DDP that looked to us like sleek aliens. At night, with the lights twinkling, and the moon nearly full, they seem to be boarding their spaceship.

We spent a great day in Insadong, the art and crafts area of Seoul, where we took a 2 hour culture tour. Our tour guide took us to an artist’s courtyard with several studio exhibitions. We were especially drawn to the work exhibited by Ahn Nam-Sook, an internationally-acclaimed award-winning artist. She has even painted the president of South Korea! We lingered to see her colorful paintings. She seemed captivated by us as well, and, after taking photos with us, poked our fingers with an acupuncture tool to improve our health. There is a lot of Chinese/herbal medicine practiced here. A large crowd gathered around to watch Ahn, as she painted caricatures of both of us and gave them to us as a gift of good luck and love. Cameras were flashing. We felt like movie stars in her presence, and were honored by her gift. We bought one of her painting imprinted cups and promised to show her around the Bay Area and wine country, if she visits the west coast.

We walked back to Dongdaemun slowly in a light rain. We had a scrumptious dinner of steamed pork dumplings and hot noodle soup on the way. We passed a lady in traditional Korean dress who kindly posed for a photo. We saw a huge gathering of older men playing a Korean game called “Go,” at Topgol Park. The neighborhood caters to retirees on fixed incomes and has lots of little “hole-in-the-wall” restaurants, an in-expensive movie theatre, and a nice street market. Bruce bought a piano tuning kit at a music store there and plans to tune our piano himself when we get home. 👀

Next we will travel via high-speed train to the southern port-city of Busan, South Korea, where we’ll spend four nights/five days. Hope this finds you healthy and happy!

Love n hugs, BnL

Author: bnlmos

We are a retired couple, together nearly 35 years, who love International travel. Having a "blog" is brand new to us, so have patience as we do our best to keep in touch with our friends and family. Please feel free to comment on this blog or contact us via personal email. brucemos@hotmail.com View all posts by bnlmos