A whole lotta Seoul

Guard ceremony I came across in town
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My Korean adventure is almost over, and I saved the best for last - Seoul

I caught the bullet train from Busan, mainly just to see what a bullet train is like.  It took 2.5 hours, compared to the 6 hours it took to get to Ulsan from Incheon, a comparable distance.

At about 4 I thought it time to go to bed....

When I got to the station a little man with a trolley asked me "taxi taxi taxi?".  I hesitated - and he grabbed my bag, put it in his trolley, and started running through the station with it.  So I shrugged, said "subway subway subway", and trotted along after him thinking "bugger, what is this going to cost me?".  10,000 won ($15) and 1 lesson learnt later, I was at the subway, a total distance from the train station of about 300m.

Example of street food - my pancake is being made for me at the back
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My backpackers picked me up from the subway station exit - my immediate impression of Seoul was that it is very busy, lively and fun.  I am staying in a university area, so there are lots of young people, shops, food stalls and bars around.  For the rest of the day I wandered around Seoul getting my bearings, then had a beer with an Aussie guy staying at the backpackers (in good backpacker tradition) and talked about rugby for a couple of hours.

Thursday 1/3

On Thursday I had arranged to meet with Sean and Adrienne for a day of sight seeing.  First plan was the Seoul Tower - set on a hill in a park in the middle of town.  The tower had signs with distances from major cities in the world - unexpectedly I am closer to the UK than home.  From the tower you can also see all the smog of the city - yuck!

This is one panel of the art on the outside of the temple in Seoul
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Near the tower, down a circuitous pathway, is a Korean folk village with houses of noblemen from about 100 years ago, in traditional Korean form.  Thursday was a national holiday - so there were many people and annoying kids running around, but it was interesting to see how people, albeit rich people, lived before the western influence hit.

The public holiday was a celebration of Korea's independence movement against the occupation by Japan in the first half of last century.  Everywhere we went there were different ceremonies, singing, drumming and speeches, making the sightseeing even more interesting.

The number 1 treasure of Korea - the original gate to the city, dating from the 1400's. A change of guard ceremony is held twice everyday - except for the day I went there to see it!
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Luckily, two of the palaces we wanted to see had free entry due to the public holiday - score!  We had to rush through them as we were running a bit late to be on a tour of a palace called Changdeokgang, that housed the imperial family for the last dynasty of Korea - from 1400's to 1910.  But, one palace is much the same as another so we didn't feel like we missed too much.  We had to take a tour as the grounds and buildings are so precious they don't want people wandering around by themselves.  The highlight of the tour (which made it completely worthwhile) was seeing the secret garden - beautiful ponds, trees and buildings for the relaxation of the monarchs.

Street drummers in one of the markets - and guy in suit dancing to them
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We spent a lot of the day eating Korea's yummy street food - trying as much as possible, including as much fat and sugar that we could find!  I definitely recommend eating from the stalls if you come here - its cheap and much nicer at times than the restaurants I have been too.  The only problem is their large portion sizes get in the way of trying everything!  My favourite place I have found for the street food and atmosphere is the Insadong area - easy walking distance from the centre of town and major palaces in Seoul.  It is a street that has been taken over by pedestrians and street stalls, and also has shops selling art, furniture and the like to make it even more interesting for browsing.

Not far to London....
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Towards the end of the day we took a walk along a newly recreated stream in the middle of the town, set under road level with waterfalls, lights and stepping stones making it a nice place to be at night and during the day.

Friday 2/3

Today I had booked a tour of the Demilitarised zone, which I knew would be slightly disappointing as I was too unorganised and late to get on a "real" tour to the joint security area, where you get to see the soldiers facing off against each other.  But the tour was, in my opinion, a total disaster!  It went to noted landmarks around the DMZ, being:

Me and North Korea - really
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• an infiltration tunnel built by North Korea to use to attack South Korea (presumably) - this was interesting, especially seeing the coal the NK's had painted on the walls to try to say that it was an abandoned coal mine.
• an observatory that looks out over North Korea where you can see their guard towers and maybe soldiers in the distance, except on this tour as the weather was so bad you couldn't see 2 metres infront of you
• a train station built in the DMZ in the hope of unification in the future - no trains actually go there at the moment, but it is a full train station with signs and everything.  Exciting.  We did get to stamp our passports with commemorative stamps tho. 
• A couple of very cheesy videos giving a brief outline of the history of the separation

Ceremony in the park where the independence movement was started - the pictures are of people killed during the movement.
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This all took most of the day, was a waste of time and money if you cant go to the joint security area, (in my opinion, others seemed to enjoy it).

That night I had some more beers in a couple of lovely bars around the hostel, with a Scottish guy named Paul who has spent the last 19 years traveling around the world, and a German guy of my age (there is a shortage of girls staying at the hostel, unfortunately).  In the first bar we were drinking their 2000 won ($3) draught beer when a couple of Koreans asked as very politely whether they could join our conversation, which of course we agreed to willingly, and spent many hours talking and drinking with them finding out more about Korea.  The second bar we went to had the most amazing CD and vinyl collection - covering 2 of its walls - that you could make requests from.  At about 4 I thought it time to go to bed, considering I wanted to make the most of my last day in Seoul.

Saturday 3/3

Today I managed to get up after only 4 hours of sleep and decided to explore the area of Seoul over the river - known as the Beverly HIlls of Seoul, complete with its own Rodeo drive - and go for a river cruise.  Unfortunately the thick smog/fog changed my mind about the river cruise, just walking around the streets I felt like I had taken 5 years off my life.  Instead I came back to this side, wandered around the markets for a while looking at things I cant fit into my pack, and ofcourse eating some more.  I also went to see the major temple in Seoul - Jedgoysa.  This has just been renovated and the paintings and art work that made up its outside walls were amazing.

Am flying to Beijing tomorrow morning - will be sad to leave Seoul as I have really enjoyed it here, it is a very vibrant city with something happening around every corner, be it brightly coloured guard ceremonies, or b-boys breaking out some moves.

Thanks Rach, Sean and Adrienne for making my time in Korea something I will never forget!