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First weekend in Seoul....
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Tuesday, 19 February 2008 |
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So we showed up on the 22nd, my friend Kenny and I. Flew all the way from the states and boy were our arms tired. No but cheesy jokes aside, 13 hours on a plane is enough to try the Dahli Lamma's patience. So we get here, get our luggage, relativley painless. We snag a bus and take it to the hotel where we'll be staying for the weekend before we head down to Pyountaek city.
Once at the hotel, we're shocked with the decor, I feel like I've taken a trip in a time machine and I'm stuck somewhere between 1975 and 1990. The design is well.... unique, we get a double room and when we put our luggage up we're suprised to see, two ornately carved beds, and matching vanity. The furnature is reminicent of a 1970's honeymoon suite, they must have gotten Kenny and I all wrong whene we walked up to the desk or somthing.
The retro bed
... Anyways, being as that I' married an Kenny has a girlfriend, we were secure and thus continued on our way.
We had no idea where to go or what to do so we did what any globe trotter does and simply started walking. We went up and down alleys before spotting a reseraunt. We were both famished and decided to get some grub. Thankfully grub is exactly what we got, we are both fluent in korean but sometimes there are still words that catch us off guard, apparently the korea word for "snails" is one of those words. At first we weren't sure what it was so we ordered it, when it came out we realized we had just ordered snails in hot pepper paste. My experience has taught me that you must try somthing at least once, and boy am I glad I did, they were great! After the snails and some OB's we were on our way.
We stummbled on to a rock concert that was going on in the streets, it was awesome, the music was so intense and raw. We continued on our way and ended up lost many times before eventually ending up back at the hotel.
The next morning we decided to head out on the subway and find the Blue Tile House, this is a kin to our white house in the states, it's the presidential residence. After asking about half a million people how to get there we were just about done. That's when we stumbled onto Kyoung Bok Koong. A beautiful palace that for centuries was home to the royalty of Korea. The place was great, we paid our 3,500 won and went in. The palace was simply breath taking.
After the palace Kenny called up one of his Korean contacts (I swear that guy knows people everywhere) and we were off.
Excited sat Kyoung Bok Goong
We didn't really know what we wanted to do so we went to the 63 story building, Korea's largest building. We proceeded to the observation deck and boy was the view breath taking, you could see a sea of light as far as the horizon, I belive only here can someone truly appreciate the size of Seoul.
In front of the 63 story building is the Han river, so we decided to take a stroll. We walked and talked to Kenny's contact, a man named Baek. Baek had studied in Canada for most of highschool and spoke pretty good english, he told us about korean culture, especially about the compulsary military service sytem they have. His time was almost done, he said, so he was happy. After our walk we decided to go buy fireworks and light them off, to celebrate our safe arrival.
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