Welcome to Seoul..

I feel like I need to put in a disclaimer before I start into my time in Seoul. People love certain cultures, and like to dive and immerse themselves in them. For example; my sister, Lisa, loves Latin culture. She studied Spanish in college, speaks it fluently, and she currently lives in the south of Spain. My soulmate Tom, has always been enamoured with the idea of New York, and like my sister, went to go live there for a while. I love Korean culture. I love their cultural values. I find their history fascinating. I love watching Korean TV shows (yes, it’s a thing and if you want recommendations, I’m more than willing to impart some) and I love Korean food.

Now that that has been said, let’s move on.

Becky and I made a mistake. She knew it. I knew it. We both knew. The flight we got from Tokyo left at 1 am, and landed in Seoul at 4 am. Do you see where we made the mistake? Instead of a nice medium length afternoon flight, we were crossing the sky in the early morning. The timing was awkward both in terms of leaving Tokyo and in arriving in Seoul. We did what we both do best however, and we took it all in stride. When we arrived in Incheon International Airport we just sat near the baggage claim, for probably about an hour, maybe an hour and a half? At some point we migrated to the arrivals area. We literally had nothing to do. There was no way we could check in to our hotel (check in was at 2pm – of course) and there wasn’t much to do in the airport. So we sat. We flipped out our phones at odd intervals. Caught each other’s eye and descended into fits of hysterical laughter at others. All in all, it was THAT bad though. It was a mistake, and yes it was very inconvenient, but I suppose, it could have been worse right?

After hanging around the airport for about 4 hours, we’d had enough and proceeded to board the bus into the city. Costing about 16,000 won, the bus itself took about 2 or so hours, and took us into Seoul via the scenic route. We went to the hotel hoping, praying and willing to beg them to at least let us check in an hour or two early. We were staying at the Ramada Hotel and Suites Seoul Namdaemun. Luckily our room was ready early, and we got to check in early without any additional costs. I’m still not sure if it was actually free, or if the staff just felt sorry for us.The hotel itself, was relatively well priced, coming to about €266 for the both of us for 3 nights in the very centre of Seoul.

Namsan Park and Namsan Tower

After some much needed sleep and subsequent freshening up, Becky and I were ready to head out and explore Seoul. First things first for anybody looking at coming to Seoul, know this very important piece of information. Without it you’ll be lost. Google maps will get you nowhere in this country. I’m not talking about, “oh there’s a few streets missing” issues like in Thailand and in some rural areas of the world. The South Korean government have refused to give Google information regarding walking routes and specific street names in the country because they don’t want the information to somehow become available to North Korea. Wild right? Instead they have their own app called Naver maps. Incidentally, Naver is actually the dominant search engine in South Korea. Google is actually the underdog in this market with over 70% of South Koreans opting to use Naver. Point being, don’t rely on Google here. Naver is your best friend. It properly maps out all streets (both over ground and underground walking areas), there’s an English language version, it has up to date times for public transport the whole works. There’s actually an argument to be made that Naver maps is better than Google maps here – The amount of times I’ve started walking in one direction with Google maps, and suddenly 2 minutes into the route, I see that I’m actually walking the wrong way. But I’ll leave that up to you to decide..

Our first stop for Seoul was Namsan Park and Namsan Tower. It was walkable from our hotel, so that was the way we took. Namsan Park is absolutely beautiful. Seoul itself could rival Tokyo in terms of the cleanliness of its streets and parks – Maybe not win an outright battle, but it still gets very high marks. Namsan Park itself is a historic site. It’s at the base of Mt. Namsan, which, though it is a mountain (in the middle of a city, yes) it’s not very high – It’s peak is about 262m.

Once you enter the park, you can opt to walk to the top via a stairway (not for the faint hearted) or you can grab a cable car to the top also. We opted for the cable car. On the way up we got some grand and sweeping views of the city skyline. At the top of Mt. Namsan, the iconic Namsan Tower can be seen. The Namsan Seoul tower is South Korea’s first general radio wave tower, and it broadcasts radio and TV for some of the country’s major media outlets.

Street Food Mania

I really hit my stride food wise on my trip here. While I love Japanese food, Korean food has my absolute heart and soul. Korea and Food. Food and Korea. Tteokkboki, Kimchi, Gimbap, Eomuk Tang, Hotteok, Mandu, Jajangmyeon, Ramen, Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Mung Bean Pancakes (Bindaetteok), and the list goes on and on and on. It’s nearly endless. Korea, as well as being the fashion and technological capital of Asia is well known throughout the region for their delicious and tasty delicacies.

After leaving Namsan, we headed towards Myeongdong, one of Seoul’s primary shopping districts. Specifically, we headed straight for Myeongdong food street. This street had big brand names, an alarming number of skincare stores and had what could easily amount to hundreds of food stalls. Fresh Tteokboki was bubbling, Gimbap was being rolled, Red Bean Buns were being steamed, the whole lot. The smells in the street were so appetizing, that it felt like you were tasting the air. Everything was absolutely delicious and above all else, everything was fresh and was prepared and cooked right in front of you. From the second we started eating street food we knew that going to a restaurant after was a no go. Instead we spent the evening going from stall to stall, trying out the local delights, stepping into a few shops to check out some of the local fashion and sometimes just standing outside and listening to music. Food and shopping? It was a magical evening.

Joseon Korea

The next day in Seoul took us to Gyeongbokgung Palace. Entrance to the palace will set you back 3000 won, which equates to about €2.40. This particular palace, out of the five grand palaces, was the main palace of the Joseon dynasty. I’m not going to go into a massively long history lesson, but this was the longest running dynasty in Korea, and came to an end quite recently. I believe it came to an end sometime possibly in the late 1890’s or early 1900’s before the peninsula was then invaded by Japan. But like I said, no long history lessons, you can have a look into this yourself if you’re interested (the history of the Korean peninsula is really quite fascinating, and if you ever want to find out how the divide between the north and the south came to be, it more or less began around this point).

As with all historical sites, taking a walk around the massive palace grounds brought you back to a different time and place. Also the fact that tourists, both men and women were walking around wearing hanbok (traditional Korean dress) added to that ambience. For a fee women could rent out Jeogori and Chima and men could wear Baji and Po and walk around the palace grounds. Within the compound you could also visit the traditional Korean Folk museum.

After leaving the palace grounds, we headed straight to Dongdaemun for lunch and shopping. Seoul is the self-proclaimed shopping capital of Asia. You can buy just about anything here, counterfeit or otherwise. In fact, counterfeit culture is so well known in South Korea, that actual brands refuse to have a presence in the region. Surprising given that South Korea is the 11th biggest economy in the world. Street vendors are selling fake Gucci, Balenciaga, Prada and Supreme clothing and accessories for less than the equivalent of €10. Not only are these goods counterfeit, but they are very good copies. On clothing, the only real indicator that you have a fake is the internal tag which will say something like “Classic Fashion” or some variation of that, rather than whichever brand name. After walking around the many street vendors and indulging in some street food, on the recommendation of a lovely couple we were eating beside, we headed towards the Dongdaemun Design Plaza.

The structure itself is a huge futuristic oblong type building. Around the building are many shopping malls with floors upon floors of clothes, some with western shops and other malls with South Korean stores and market stalls. It was amazing. In the Design Plaza, we randomly stumbled across a fashion show, which we of course watched, and shortly after a famous South Korean boyband (or at least I assumed they were famous from how deafening loud the woman’s screams were and how that initial crowd quadrupled in size) performed a few songs. All around the plaza and mall area there was street food, of course. An interesting thing to note about these malls? They were no ordinary malls. These malls opened at around 6pm and had closing times of about 8am. After enjoying our free shows, and walking around these malls (I was dying inside. So many clothes at such cheap prices) we headed back to our hotel.

Oppa Gangnam Style

Can you guess where we spent part of our last day in Seoul? For those of you that never made it further than dancing to the song, Gangnam is actually a very affluent neighbourhood in Seoul. The name “Gangnam” translates to “South of the River” as you have to cross the river Han to get to it. A lot of money has been poured into this area, so there’s a lot of big brands, financial institutions, and in general, it has a different feel to other parts of Seoul. It was a lot quieter than the other neighbour hoods, and to be frank, we didn’t really find much to do here other than walk around and look at tall buildings. To ensure that our trip wasn’t a waste we had some Korean Barbecue at a nice restaurant, and we left on our merry way.

A subway ride brought us back to Namdaemun. The subway system, like Tokyo is very well fleshed out and is very easy to navigate. Subway journeys typically range from 1250 SKW upwards, and there’s no real need to purchase a dedicated subway card. You can travel by paying each way. I didn’t get a subway card because I was only in Seoul for a few days, and to be frank, we walked to the majority of our destinations too. We probably used the subway a total of 3 or 4 times I think. You can of course opt to get a T-Money card instead. As well as subway and buses, you can use this card to pay for fares on some (not all!) taxis.

Back on our home turf, we took the time to see Namdaemun gate, which actually turned out to be pretty close to our hotel. It is one of the eight gates in the fortress wall that used to surround the city of Seoul during the Joseon dynasty. This particular gate is the largest of all the eight. It is also South Korea’s number 1 national treasure. Back in 2008 the gate was set on fire, and was nearly completely destroyed. It took the South Korean government over 5 years to repair the extensive damaged that was caused. Just goes to show that not all humans have respect from national treasures or priceless artefacts.

To end our trip, we brought ourselves back to Myeongdong to enjoy our last night in Seoul with some delicious food and music. With that, we walked back to our hotel, taking in the last of our fill of Seoul at night.

Final Thoughts

There are a few things that become very apparent in the first few hours of walking around Seoul;

Everybody is on their phones. It’s not just here, but also in Tokyo as well, I neglected to actually say that in my last post. There are running jokes about people being glued to their phones, but I never really found that statement to be entirely true until I visited these two cities. I remember an instance of sitting on the subway in Tokyo and just looking to my left, then looking to my right and noting that every single person was immersed the their phone. It almost felt like a scene out of a movie. People are on the phones on the subway, on the phones walking down the street, on their phones crossing the streets and much more. It’s not just sending messages or making phone calls either. Its quite normal for people to be walking down the street watching videos and playing games on their phones. I've had to actively dodge people who were so immersed in their gameplay that they were completely unaware that they were about to collide with me in the street. I found the same kind of thing in Seoul though it was definitely more extreme in Tokyo (they had many signs indicating that people should get off their phones and be aware of their surroundings not just in the subway stations, but in other public places also).

People are very very well dressed. If you’re thinking of a trip here, make sure you’re coming with your good clothes. It seems an odd thing to note, but I feel like I never saw anyone that was dressed sloppily. Hair was always done very well, make up was perfect. I don’t recall anyone looking less than their best. I actually did speak to a few Koreans on this and the general thing that came across was that Korea is a hyper competitive country, and appearance is everything. People are judged on how they appear (which is kind of terrifying if you think about it). If you’re applying for a job, having a picture on your resume is an absolute must. This kind of hyper competition can be seen in a lot of various aspects of their society, such as education – studying hard to be the best and going to a good university is a given, the high usage of beauty products and plastic surgery in men and woman and how fast Koreans adapt to fashion trends and so on and so forth. There’s a downside to this however, this higher competition is said to be the leading cause as to why the suicide rate in Korea is so high, particularly in the younger generation. Globally, South Korea is 10th in the amount of suicide related deaths, but amongst OECD nations it is number 1.

The couple culture is very VERY real. Like seriously – PDA everywhere and not the strictly PG kind. If PDA is not your thing, or it seriously irks you, you may want to avoid Seoul. Accompanying this is a who lot of “matchy matchy”. I saw many couples walking around in the same clothes. Some did it to a small degree i.e. matching jumpers, and other couples were full on wearing the same tops, shoes, similar or the same jeans etc. It was……..weird.

Lastly, there are a varying amount of underground bomb shelters just scattered about the city. You don’t notice it at first, but when you look closely, a lot of underground walkways, or subway stations actually double as bomb shelters. It was both very interesting and mildly terrifying.

All said, I really loved Seoul, and I’m making plans to come back and explore for a longer period of time. I didn’t get to do all that I wanted, like visit the Han river, and take a trip to Busan, but they’re definitely on my agenda for my next visit. In any case, we packed up and moved on to our next destination, which was the Philippines.

Until next time...

Babs.