Seoul Day 1
So many firsts, eating Oyster pancakes, Bimbimbap, Chrysalis, riding the Seoul subway, going to the top of Seoul tower, while having a delightful time.

After having spent a great day in Toronto meeting up with old friends, it was time to board my flight for Seoul ,Korea . By the time we boarded I had been up for 18 hours as well as having slept very little the previous nights. Was prepared to have some wine and fall asleep for the better part of the 13 � hour flight. It didn�t quite happen that way.

This was my first experience flying long distance with a non-European or American Airline. What an experience it was, service to the nth degree, administered by gorgeous flight attendants. It brought back memories from the days of Pan Am glory. Each one of these lovely women was more exquisite than the next, and always smiling and gracious. We were served cold water and juices, the hot towels, drinks and dinner. I opted for the Korean meal of Bibimbap, which was a first, a delicious dish consisting of hot rice, ground beef, soybean sprouts, shitake mushrooms, spinach, topped with an egg, served with hot chili sauce, sesame oil and a seaweed soup. Have now found another favorite food, served on an airplane, amazing.

My seat companions were fortunately very nice, we were cramped but for once the seats reclined to a pitch which made sleeping reasonably comfortable. After more food, water, juice, etc we finally arrived in Seoul at 2.30 am.

Cleared immigration and customs and walked through this huge airport.
There was an ATM outside in the arrival hall next to the currency exchange booth. What I discovered is that there are two kinds of ATM�s, global that will accept all kinds of cards and another that is card specific. Touts approached with offers of taxis for 110,000w, which I declined, having received a letter from the hotel that buses were not running at that hour, but that the black taxis were 40.000 w.

Exit the airport and there is a bus for 14,000 the driver tells me to get off at Seoul Station and take a taxi, with the aid of kind passengers that is what happened.
The hotel which has been booked is called Hamilton and despite several confirmations that I would be arriving at an awkward hour nobody has a clue. No problem, am given a room, which reminds me of budget hotels in Paris, small and dingy. I remind myself that one shouldn�t judge by first impressions after a long flight. Unpack and sleep for a couple of hours. Go down speak to reception and the room is changed. What a difference, now have a view, a sitting area, two double beds and room to breathe.

Since I don�t know what has been planned except a general schedule I decided to go to the Korean Folk Village about 1 � hours away in Suwon www.koreanfolk.co.kr . The subway system is very efficient, before each stop there is a snippet of music I recognize but can not place. All the announcements are made in Korean and English. It was an easy ride despite having to change trains several times. Ticket cost 16,000.

The Korean Folk Village comprises of a large collection of thatched Korean traditional houses and buildings from all over the country. There is a bus by the tourist information center, on top of the stairs when you exit the station, which runs every half hour, you purchase the ticket 12,000w and that is your admission to the village. I had decided to do this thinking I would get a better idea of what life was like in Korea in the rural areas. Am not sure I know any more than before, however it was an interesting visit.

I believe that every school group in Korea was there, at least that is how it seemed. The 4 year olds in identical sweat suits were so adorable that I could have taken each and every one home. The older children, 8-9 years, were having a ball, photographing the houses, using either cell phones or digital cameras. They were boisterous but not obnoxious. My impressions so far are that the Koreans are very courteous, pleasant and agreeable people.

After having seen many of the houses I am getting bored and hungry so I proceed to the market place which is also a food court. They serve the same food as in the restaurants that you walk by as you enter the village, and prices are the same. The food is cooked in small houses, you eat it on platforms, at traditional low tables. After having paid in advance I go to the place where the pancakes are made, I had ordered to Oyster pancake, not knowing what I was getting. For 6,000 I got 6 smallish omelettes with fresh oysters. You help yourself to soy sauce and metal flat chops sticks. Though my knee, for those of you who missed my news I have a torn meniscus, which happened just before the trip, but thanks to modern medicine and a Cortisone injection it is quite flexible. However I was not going to climb up on one of the platforms and sit at a low table to eat. Instead I let my feet dangle and relished my lunch.

When we got back to the subway, I decided to go into the supermarket to buy water. Each subway station appears to have malls, shops and supermarkets. As you enter you are greeted by an array of food stations, many of them cook on the spot. There were dumpling being made, a sushi conveyor belt, shrimp rolls fried, cookies baked and everywhere smiling faces. I wasn�t very tempted to try anything but loved the atmosphere. In the back of the locale was the supermarket, it was small, everything looked so fresh. As I left with my water I saw a shoemaker, my shoe needed fixing, and he could do it. He wanted to practice his English so the first thing he said was �Can I buy you a welcome drink� my reply was �Yes, that would be nice� I think he had no idea what to say or do after that. While I was waiting a young man came to order something which it took a while for me to figure out. His chop had broken and he needed a new one. It was made and cut by a computer, after all the proper identification had been produced. Then it was duly stamped in a book and intialled.

Time to go back to Seoul, wasn�t quite sure what to see next, should I go to the fish market or�..One of the beauties of being on your own is that you can make your decisions as you go along. I decided to go to Seoul tower. According to my guidebook it is a walkable distance from Seoul tower, it is not.

Fortunately taxis are plentiful and cheap, so off I went, took the cable car up and landed in what must have been the Korean version of Valentines Day. First there were large staues of hearts designed by various artists. Couples were arriving with huge flower baskets in the shape of hearts, the fences around the periphery of the outlook platform were covered with padlocks, that had words of endearments written on them, bike chains in the shape of hearts and a lot of young couples. There were a few tourists, but mostly Koreans.

On my way down to the cable car I see this old man selling something hot, a little smelly and quite suspicious looking. Stop to look a woman walks by and buys a paper cup full, and tells me that it is delicious. Then a young family walks by they stop to buy some for the children, so I ask is it really delicious? The mother tells me the children like it, and that is how I got to taste puppae cooked in a soysauce. They were actually quite good, though I don�t think they will become part of my regular diet.

On my way back to the hotel I walk through what is probably the equivalent to the garment district, and pass by a building that has something obviously important going on. Parking attendants looking like marionettes directing cars into a parking lot. Outside the building that is lit up, are hundreds of tall flower arrangements with long silk banners. Security is tight lots of walkie talkies. I approach a man who appears to be in charge and he explained that it is the inauguration of a wedding palace, or in my vernacular a special events place for weddings. I ask permission to go and look and surprisingly he says yes. The party is being set up, I wander around it is very impressive, meet the presumed owner and congratulate him, he tells me go upstairs it�s even better. He was right, I take pictures and then this man comes up and says no pictures. He then takes me on a guided tour, it turns out he was the constructional engineer. and very proud of his work. The place can hold 3 weddings simultaneously, the p.p. cost is 50.000 excluding alcohol. My mind is reeling, how on earth can they make a profit. Unfortunately never had the chance to find out since the ribbon cutting was about to take place and it was time for me to leave. This was one party I would have loved to attend.

It is now close to 7 pm time to get back to the hotel and go and have dinner. When I arrive I see a group of Swedish women who are obviously part of the meeting. We hook up and go out for Korean food I have another Bibimbap which was still delicious.

My first impressions of Seoul are that it is a city that seems to come alive as the day progresses. It is very vital and has a good feel to it. The signage is a mixture of English and Korean. .

Katie was and angel and removed the original post. I didn't care about my name and e-mail being posted but I didn't want the others on there.

Will try to find the time to write some more. Am now at the Hilton in Gyeongju, after having slept on the floor at a Buddhist temple the night before. Talk about a life of contrasts.

yeah, way better, cleaner now. I could tell that had thrown you..

Now onward and upward! yahooo!

I was wondering about it, lo and behold Katie comes to the rescue, the TR looks great.

I assume you flew Korean Air?

Nice to have details on Korea.

We are all tuned in here so please keep it coming..great report so far!!

Day 2 Seoul
Breakfast has an interesting assortment of foods. There is mixture of Korean and Western dishes. They serve a lightly smoked salmon, vegetable salads, dried small fish, hard boiled and scrambled eggs and the standard cereals. I opt for kimchi, (fermented cabbage), and all the other goodies.

The card to the camera is stuck and I want to get a mouse for the laptop so decide to go exploring the electronics center. Get off at Yongsan station and walk through a shopping center, the size of several malls. The amount of general merchandise is staggering, one really senses how much of a consumer society this is by all the malls and shops that are all over. I walk through this mall and take an escalator up, and am in electronics heaven, there are several floors, each one carries only one type of merchandize. The first floor have only cameras, thousands of them, next floor laptops and computers. Finally I reach the floor where I can get a new card reader and the mouse. I could have spent hours wandering around, but the Seoul National Museum was waiting.

When I get out from the subway and approach the museum I am totally taken aback by the sheer beauty of the building. As a rule architecture is not one of the things I wax lyrical about, however, this building is magnificent. The museum was built only a few years ago, and is a very impressive building.

I spend several hours walking around, and am fortunate enough to meet a docent, who very kindly explains some of the art that I am seeing. It was very fortuitous that there had been a Chinese exhibit at the Met which is described on my blog that I visited before coming to SEA. The difference in the art is quite striking. There was also a lot about the different historic eras in Korea which was a good introduction for me, since we would be visiting the old capital of the Silla kings later in the week. I ended up having a not very satisfactory Chicken Salad lunch at the Reflecting Pool Restaurant ,before it was time to go back to the hotel and meet the rest of the group.

What has struck me so far is the incredible sense of well being I feel in Seoul. Just being here makes me feel good. It might be that though people stare at me, when I smile at them I get big grins back. The fact that the overture to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, is played before you arrive at the subway stops where connecting trains can be caught makes me smile. Could it be because people are not loud and boisterous, but incredibly orderly, they stand on escalators in one line and the city is very clean?

Have no idea what causes this sense of well being, am going with it and enjoying myself. When I get back to the hotel the group has gathered, I meet the woman with whom I am to share room for the remainder of the time in Korea. She lives in Perth Australia, and is very perky. As it turns out I have a single room for most of the trip.

That evening we were to meet at a wine bar for dinner and a mixer. Some 50 odd Swedish women in one room, the noise level is deafening. Since this a regional meeting for Asia, the majority of women live in Singapore, Bangkok, Beijing and Shanghai. There are 6 of us from USA, I have the very good fortune to sit next to two women who live in Bangkok. Unfortunately they are only doing the Seoul part of the trip. After a lot of wine and food it is time for bed as we have an early start tomorrow morning to go to DMZ. And Panmunjeom

Day 3
The DMZ is only 55km from Seoul and the group has been invited by the Swedish team stationed there. We are very fortunate in being met by a Swiss Major. Unfortunately the Swedes are away on maneuvers.

What I had never realized that this is a war zone, that only an armistice had been signed and not a peace treaty. On the road up to DMZ we see watch towers with armed guards. The border is supposed to be the most heavily guarded border in the world and I believe it. Major Eberle had asked a couple of American GI’s to give us guided tours. We are taken into a tunnel that the North Koreans had dug, that was discovered in 1978. It is wide enough for an army to walk through. We have to don hard hats before getting into the train that take us underground. This is tunnel #3, there are 4 tunnels like this and supposedly 9 more that have yet to be unearthed. They were supposedly meant for an invasion, and coated with coal dust. When it was discovered after a defector told about the tunnels, and many attempts were made to find them, the North Koreans claimed it was an old coal mine. Except there is no coal, in this area only granite.

The young soldier who ends up being our guide for the entire rest of the visit is from Texas, 23 years old, complained of the bitter cold winters, it can be -20F at times and the loneliness, he is on duty 6-7 days a week. He explains that they have to wear sunglasses at all times in case they would inadvertently make eye contact with the enemy.

We are escorted to a small UN building that is ½ in South Korea and ½ in North Korea. TheSouth Korean soldiers stand on guard with sunglasses and clenched fists. The soldiers who stand guard outside the buildings facing North Korea keep half of their body hidden to make smaller targets. We see the North Korean soldier who uses his binoculars every few minutes, that is when you realize how precarious the situation can become. It may be a tourist destination but, this is a war zone, with both sides prepared at any second.

Because Sweden and Switzerland are the two neutral observers within the zone, they have their own camp. We have been invited for lunch, which is quite the feast, with mainly Swedish food. Our young American GI is sorely disappointed that the cheese cake is not as he is used to.

We say our goodbyes, I leave with very mixed emotions, it is scary to see the barbed wire, the guard towers, and the soldiers with their automatics and the barren land on each side. I remember Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, but it was not as scary or ominous.

There is one bright spot in the middle between the two Koreas there is stretch of land that has not been touched for over 50 years, though heavily land mined it is a haven for flora and fauna with many rare species of birds nesting, perhaps when and if peace is ever struck this is one place that can be safe.

We return to Seoul, this evening we are on our own, the chapter presidents are having a meeting, my new found friend, Gertie from Bangkok, and I go out for a Korean dinner. I have a delicious dish of stewed octopus and she has Bimbibip. We then take the subway to City Hall. I had read about it being Breast Cancer day with 60 different countriesw having monuments being lit up in pink. Seoul is one of them and I want to see it.

We get off at City Hall and there to the entrance to Cheonggyecheon stream is a large statue in the shape of a woman lifting up a pink globe. It was designed by an artist who specializes in cartoons, forgot the name, she is in front of Claes Oldenburg’s snail like statue. It was all bathed in pink, As we walked down by the stream, pink umbrellas were dancing in the air and pink flood lights illuminated the area. To think that all over the world on this day the were pink lights. There were some young Americans putting on an improve comedy show in an area by this stream. Their enthusiasm was contagious.

I really liked the Stream, a very lovely part, in the center of Seoul, which I unfortunately never found the time to explore again.
The stream was a project undertaken by the current president when he was mayor of Seoul. It was an old expressway that was cleared and underneath it was this stream that drains the valley of Seoul. It is really lovely and well worth looking at, with art exhibits on the banks.
So ends day 3.

Enjoying your TR on Korea immensely, you are heading to China today, correct?

Day 4 Seoul

Gertie had asked if she could come with me on my explorations , We set out early because I wanted to see the changing of the guard at Deoksugung Palace. It was not to happen since there was no changing of the guard that day.

Even better, there was going to be a whole procession taking place at 3 pm in front of City Hall. We took our time exploring the palace grounds and seeing the Korean Crafts Museum.

While we were at it we went over to the Westin, because there is an old temple in their gardens which is an unusual spot and we needed a bathroom break. Talking about bathrooms, Seoul is amazing, there are public restrooms everywhere, in the underground shopping areas. As you enter there is a giant roll of toilet paper, Western and Asian style toilets, spotlessly clean. I never saw any attendants so have no idea who keeps them as clean as they are.


Since we were in the area of the department store Lotte, we decided to explore it, well we didn’t get much further than the food section, “natch” $15 Asian pears beautifully wrapped. $500 teas in exquisite boxes. I could have spent hours there. Did manage to buy a handbag, which was exactly what I had been looking for in NYC and everywhere else but found in Seoul. My motto, if you see it buy it. By the way it was not found in the food section.

By now it is time for lunch and we take the subway to Noryangjin fish market which was the largest fish market under one roof that I have ever seen. Whenever I go to beautiful food markets I wish that I have a kitchen to cook in, and this was no exception. If it came from the sea it was available here. The varieties were staggering, everything was very fresh and so appetizing. We went upstairs where all the restaurants are situated and had an incredible lunch for $16 for the 2 of us. We didn’t realize it but we had gone to a sushi place, which was a perfect choice for us and the location.

The English translation of the menu didn’t do it justice, which is often the case I have noticed. Apart from the usual assortment of appetizers and kimchi, we also got a delicious fried fish, fish soup, Sashimi, sliced raw fish in a salad all of this for $16 for the 2 of us. We were very happy as we left to go to see the king and his warriors.

There is a very large field in front of City Hall which was to be the scene of the martial arts demonstrations, and mock battles between different battalions. We managed to get front row seats, between the old age pensioners, and the ever present school children.

I don’t know which of the Joseon Kings we saw but it was medieval drama at its best with elaborate costumes, martial arts soldiers jumping up and breaking sheets of wood with their bare feet, the foot soldiers jousting. We felt so fortunate to have chanced on this.

It was time to hurry back to the hotel and change for the reception and dinner at the Swedish Ambassador’s residence, which had a most beautiful garden and spectacular view.

What a fun evening it turned out to be, Seoul Swea dressed in Korean headgear greeted us with song. Singapore Swea had changed into Singapore Airlines uniforms and again in song took us on a flight. The winner of the drawing competition, for the international image of a SWEA, was won by Anneli Olsson from Singapore, who was also present. We had the opportunity to see the very cute drawing and congratulate her in person.

Thus ended my unstructured days in Seoul and the official group tour started the next day.

Well, I'd never thought of going to Seoul in a thousand years, so I'm following with great interest.

Now, NORTH Korea, yes... but South - not till now.

I wanna see that purse .. I meant see u in Lijiang!

Researching for our fall trip to Seoul and found this gem. I love Korean food and bibimbop in particular. Thanks for the info Nywoman!

Aloha!

You are most welcome. Enjoy your trip.