South Korea – Seoul

I am so behind and as I start to write about the Korean part of the journey, I have actually just set foot in Japan…. My head is in two places at once!

The flight was interesting to me in that it was pretty much all Koreans or Japanese, there was not a grey head, or any other colour to be seen. It was silent and nearly everyone went to sleep for duration of the short flight!

Where Taiwan was getting into high temperatures, Korea was more like Europe, a little chilly in the shade, hot in the sun!

A very different experience in the airport where cleaning Robots were sat recharging, what was this new world we had arrived in? Google Maps is pretty ineffective in South Korea and the other apps were a mix of English and Korean. This was going to be interesting!

This was the first country on this trip that neither of us could make head or tail of the language written or spoken! Although English is taught in school, very few people (it seems) were able to speak it.

We got a taxi to a small very sweet apartment in the downtown area of Gangnam. We were still suffering the after effects of the food poisoning (I’m sure that’s what it was) so we wandered about and slept a lot over the next day or so. Wanting to be well for when we met our next Servas hosts.

Seoul is home to over 9 million people and it is full of skyscrapers. It is also very clean. The area we were staying in was full of hair dressers, beauty shops and plastic surgeons! There were a lot of very made up and expensively dressed young women visiting these vendors. We found out later it’s not just the women who want jawlines, noses and god knows what else altered.

We met our first host for dinner. Thankfully we were both able to eat and what a feast it was! We met Youngbin who took us to a very popular tiny restaurant, we had to wait as it was so busy. Shoes off, and seated on the floor (not so comfortable for me but, getting better at it). We ate chicken and cabbage in a not too spicy sauce. The meal was placed on a burner in the center of the table where it was cooked. Later all the leftover rice was fried up with cheese too, two meals in one!

Later we walked off our meal, visited a musical fountain, a bit of an understatement, see the pictures and then up a steep hill to get a view of the city.

The next day we met Youngbin again. Tatjana had been talking about getting a hair cut and Youngbin knew just the place. Wowee a precision cut!

We then wandered up to the Gyeongbokgung Palace and there was an event going on! Entry was free and almost everyone was wearing the traditional dress the Hambok. The palace buildings are somehow heavier more robust looking than the ones we have seen in other countries, with a dark roofs (and little ornamentation) and the decorations on the wood was overall jade green and not the red and gold of the Chinese Temples.

As we wandered about and came across and saw dancing!

We met with our next host Singhu at one of the rail stations and we walked along what I thought was a man made river, Cheonggyecheon. It is actually a natural steam but, it was used as part of the early sewage system until the mid 20th Century when it was filled with concrete and became an elevated highway.

In 2003 in an effort to redevelop the city the stream was re-established after considerable opposition. It opened in 2005 and is now a very popular place to visit. It increased biodiversity, cooled that area of the city down and improved the air quality. I have been told it is heated in winter but I’m not sure that is true. It is clean though.

We also visited a large temple with masses of lanterns in celebration of Buddha’s Birthday

Youngbin picked us all up and we headed to Singhu’s home in the North of the city. I had my first wobble about food when Youngbin said she wanted to pick up some dog for dinner!!!! I don’t think I could eat dog, I like them as pets. I needn’t have worried she actually said duck! In some eyes that may not be any better!

Singhu and his wife live in a tall a condominium which is so common here, they stand out often clumped together within the hills and forests, incongruous in my eyes.

The apartment was nice, it had a strange set up with a sort of verandah outside the main rooms used a bit like a porch! Later I discovered that this is similar to the traditional houses and I think it’s to help with managing heat.

The next day we walked to a rather pretty Dobongsa Temple  on the edge of Bukhansan National Park. The down side, it was chucking it down with rain and neither of us had suitable footwear. Our feet were wet and cold by the time we returned. We went shopping so I had something else to put on instead of flipflops!

That evening we all went Salsa dancing! As you may know I love dancing but, I don’t dance Salsa. Tatjana lived in Venezuela and learned there. Once again I had the wrong sort of shoes so I just went in my socks and we had a great night winging it!