Seoul – Day Two
Holy crap! He’s already posting day two! (I know, I know. Please, I can’t type over the applause. Sheesh, folks. Calm down. There’s not even a video component in this entry. Well, sorry. It was a crappy video day. Right, ok, on with the entry. Ending self-referential soliloquy now.) The photos are immediately below, but the writing is tucked in the rest of the entry, so click the more link for the text. (Some running commentary is in the captions too.)
So, after getting a reasonable night’s sleep at Hostel Korea, Wendy, Melissa, and I set off for the train station. The closest one to us was a station called Dongmyo. It was only about a 5 minute walk, if that, away. We grabbed tickets from the ticket machine (after realizing that you have to choose the ticket before putting money in – confusing because in Japan your options light up as you insert more money) and went downstairs. Once we were on the platform, we realized that we needed to cross over to the other side. No problem – there were even escalators to aid us. Nice. We hopped on and off the train as planned, hanging out for only a few minutes at Dongnimmun for Jon to show up. He got off the train about 10 feet from us, so the meet-up went remarkably smoothly. We rode a bit further, and headed up into the foothills around Seoul. After becoming slightly turned around in a very dirty shanty-town / slum type area, and walking up a few endless staircases, we found a park. Jon flexed his new Korean language muscles as we three Love Princess kids goofed off on the playground equipment and checked the perimeter fence for further paths. We sorted it out rather quickly, and made our way to the entrance of a hilltop temple. Several cars passed us, honking madly, which was a bit scary. There was a really steep grade to the road, and most of the cars were in low gear, squealing and kicking up dust (and bad burnt rubber smells) as they made their way up to the temple gate. I think we took the more traditional route by walking. But hey, they were old people.
The weather didn’t cooperate with us during the day, which means most of my pictures are lousy, poorly exposed, and tinted funny dull greens or grays. It rained on and off as we hiked up the trails, boys scrambling up ahead eager to climb higher, girls climbing IN HEELS (which is basically like having a superpower as far as I’m concerned) and snapping photos right with us. We basically took on as many of the side trails as we could, and eventually wound our way back down to the main entrance. Jon and I managed to work our way up from one path until we were standing right next to the fortress wall. We deemed the semi-marked trail alongside it way too perilous for more adventures, and reluctantly headed back down to the girls, who were munching on chocolate coated corn chex, which I had never had before. It was yummy. Anyway, we went back to the trains, and rode to Jongno-samga and ate. Korean food is hot. Good, but HOT. I ate an entire pickled pepper. (Oh Peter Piper, where are you when you would actually work into conversation?) Wendy nibbled at one and claimed to have eaten it – a bogus claim if I do say so myself. And I do. Emphatically. (Speaking of pepper panic, Melissa and I bonded over peppers the next night. But that’s another story. For another entry. As in, not this one. Move along.)
We toured around a bit longer, after buying umbrellas. We hit 2 palaces – neither of which I can properly pronounce – Changgyeonggung and Gyeongbokgung, respectively. We took tons of photos, walked countless paths, the girls tried on traditional Korean dresses and had their photographs taken, and by the end we all became rather hungry and tired. Plus, my dogs were barking something fierce. So, nearing dinner time, made our way down to the formerly-traditional shopping street called Insadong. There were calligraphy shops, loads of keitai bling (our new term for cellphone charms), wooden shaman masks (which were all female – but I don’t know the female form of the word shaman – any help?), bronze and marble desk ornaments, and other incredibly tacky tourist fare. Jon and I bemoaned the problem of shopping with girls, who seemed to disappear into yet ANOTHER shop every 4 feet we walked. We had Korean Engrish hawkers calling to us, funny smells wafting up from the ground, and one dude going to town on a flute that really fascinated me. It was similar to (and yet completely different from) the sounds of the Japanese shakuhachi. It was cool. We ducked into a few different mall-type areas to search for a restaurant. We wanted to hit this promising tofu joint, but it was apparently reserved. Must be popular. Dang it.
We didn’t give up on the food. We couldn’t really, since our tummies wouldn’t let us. We wound up running down a side alley, and found the coolest restaurant down there. We all found something we liked, and got to eat in something that struck me as a cross between a fastfood play area, a traditional Korean tourist shop, and a chunk of set meant for the lostboys from Hook. Bang-a-rang, indeed. We dined on our treats and cracked open a few clinkers of soju, and somehow wound up deciding that it was time for some karaoke. I think it was the combination of the soju, mini stairs, low ceilings, mood lighting, and amiable company. Who wouldn’t want to go to karaoke?
We relied on Jon, as we became wont to do, who can read Hangul. He found a bunch of karaoke places, but many of them were bars. Some weren’t open yet. One just told us no without any good reason. When we found one with friendly guys running the desk, we had hope – until we saw that their selection of Japanese songs was about 7 songs long. Seriously. We politely refused a room and took back to the streets. We managed to find a different place, with a man who was really patient with us. They set us up for an hour, and we sang our hearts out. Afterward, we got back on the trains, walked back to the hostels, and conked out. It was a great day. 
For those who are interested – please be sure to check out Jon’s blog for his version of events. He’s darn fast. He has up the next day too. Speed demon, indeed. Wish he was that way about the photos. (But I’m sure he wishes I was that way about the 200 won I still owe him. Ha ha. 
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Just for kicks, if you want to see the promotional video for the hostel where we stayed (entirely in Korean, whoo hoo!), then feel free to watch it. The beginning is mostly dealing with the Han Ok stuff, but around the 5:24 mark you can see a room almost identical to mine. (The difference was that the mini-fridge was below the TV on the floor.) Then you can see a quick tour of the kitchen and common room areas. Cool. Thanks again to the folks at Hostel Korea! Not only for the friendly service, but for the free toilet paper!
