A City with Seoul

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I loved Seoul. The city itself was beautiful and clean, the food was great, and the people were friendly and active.

It took just over an hour to fly from Matsuyama, the main city in my prefecture, to Seoul. This is less time than it would take to fly from here to Tokyo. As soon as we took the bus into the city, my travel amigo, Veronica, and I were delighted to find the streets packed with vendors, noise, smells of Kim chi and outdoor seating in front of restaurants, parks, and even the 7-11 (I believe outdoor seating to be one of the best things about summer and I'm still yet to find it in Japan). We went to our funny little hostel in the back streets of a University area, got changed, and wondered out into the night, unsure if we'd make it beyond dinner.

Apparently we hadn't been paying much attention to the World Cup schedule because it took us way too long to realize that the hoards of people progressively filling the streets in red shirts and devil horns were soccer fans and we had conveniently come on the big night that South Korea was playing Switzerland. The game didn't start until 4am but it was easy to stay out with our fellow fans. We also hadn't realized that we didn't actually speak the language until we settled down at our first bar/restaurant. Although we are still mostly illiterate in Japan, we can still usually figure out what we are ordering but even the guidebooks couldn't help us in Seoul so we wondered around with the waiter, pointing to other people's tables at whatever looked decent. We ended up with a lot of Kim chi and popcorn. Many hours, bars, dances, and well, Kim chi later, the game was finally on and everyone was going crazy. That is until South Korea lost. The energy that we'd encountered upon arrival had completely vanished as we walked home at 7am with all of the other solemn Seoul-ites.

soccer mania

After a few hours of napping, we were ready to walk and went to one of the most popular palaces, a children-inspired art museum, an international tea festival, two different famous malls/supermarkets with samples of all kinds of different Korean foods, the Olympic park from the 1988 Olympics, and we spent some time resting on the waterfront which was packed with rollerbladers, skateboarders, bikers, joggers, etc.
Veronica making friends with Korean children
the changing of the guard at Deoksugung palace
a young artist at the museum
the waterfront

We took that night off and woke up early the next day to get picked up to visit the Demiliterized Zone (DMZ). It is necessary to go through a tour in order to see the 4km wide and 240 km long division between North and South Korea and while it was all obviously very tourist oriented, I still really enjoyed it. After walking around the Bridge of Freedom and the U.S. monument, we were transferred onto a special bus where a Korean soldier came on to check our passports. We were then driven to the Third Tunnel, which was discovered in the 1970s and was one of four tunnels that North Korea tried to dig under the DMZ into South Korea. They were caught each time and always used the excuse that they were mining. Tourists are only able to go a few hundred meters into the tunnel and even that was powerful to see. Had North Korea been successful, they would have been able to move 56,000 soldiers through the tunnel within an hour, a tunnel just 55 km north of Seoul. It could have been disastrous. The actual view into North Korea is really interesting but hard to photograph. There are several small towns right on the border which are mostly empty and just building shells. Directly across from each other, there are also two incredibly tall flags and the Koreas are continually competing to raise the higher flag. Right now, North Korea is winning with its 160 meter high high-flying red flag. The slogans on the North Korean side say "Follow the way of the Leader," while on the South Korean side they say, "Freedom, Abundance and Happiness." It looks like we visited just in time before this week's attempted missile launching.

The Bridge of Freedom

There is a line which you can't step over to take pictures into North Korea but like these people I tried anyways.

friendly and patient Korean soldiers

After the DMZ, we continued with an afternoon of war memorabilia and ventured to the very impressive War Memorial Museum since there were festivities to commemorate the 56th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. We also stumbled upon an outdoor Spanish-style musical concert up at Seoul Tower in the center of the city and we went to a bustling night market for dinner and shopping.

lunch, a giant Korean pancake with different kinds of Kim chi on the side
the War Memorial Museum


view from Seoul Tower



On our final full day, we went to another very impressive palace, a folk museum, and we found some ritzy European-style neighborhoods. We then went to a show called Namba, which was similar to the Blue Man Group but with cooking and Veronica got pulled to the stage and was made the star of the show. We also went to a ridiculously nice restaurant on the 38th floor of a beautiful glass building and finished our trip with another big night out. Although we were there just three and half days, our two nights without sleep made it feel like a week long journey and I think that we sufficiently packed a lot in. If I ever need another excuse to live in Asia, I'd be tempted to head back to the Seoul area.

Gyeongbokgung palaces