Korea! Part One

 

So as the school year ended, and the school staff transitions and prepares for the new school year, there’s close to nothing for the ALTs to do at work except for “show up.”

I decided to take one day of my daikyu from this past term, and take some of my regular vacation time, and go on an extended weekend to Seoul! I’ve been meaning to go to South Korea for awhile, and I missed out on opportunities to visit my friends while she was living there last year. South Korea is right there by Japan, pretty safe for a lone traveler, and cheap. I was planning on taking a day trip to the DMZ as well, but then decided against it, what with the current political climate, and with some of the activities going on between the North and the South now, it’s a good thing I went to Seoul when I did!

I ended making my hostel and plane reservations before I realized that some other ALTs in Saitama prefecture were also planning on going to Seoul around the same time I was. I would’ve gone to Seoul whether or not people were coming anyway, but it was good to meet up with them and travel with company!

I flew to Incheon airport from Narita on Saturday, March 23rd. I stayed in Seoul until Wednesday, March 27th. The flight was around 2 hours long. Even though I landed in Korea around 5pm, I ended up not making it to my hostel until around 9pm. It was fast going through customs, but it took forever for me to find the desk where I could buy a T-money card, which is is used for going around the Seoul subway system. When I finally got my card, I had to wait another half hour to take the express train to central Seoul station.

I was able to figure out the subway and make it to the train station closest to my hostel, but then I had to walk four blocks and down a few dark alleyways to find it. It was a little nerve-wracking wandering around by myself while carrying my duffel, but I found my hostel in good time. My hostel was in a part of Seoul called Insa-dong, which is part of the historical district, and was right across the street from Changdeokgung Palace.

One of the workers at the hostel pointed out a well-lit road not far away where I had my first Korean dinner. It was in this tiny restaurant run by an older woman and her husband. I ate a beef soup called galbi-tang, because the picture on the menu made it seem like it wouldn’t be too spicy. It wasn’t thank goodness! But I was also treated to a nice surprise in Korean cuisine. They love their side dishes, and give you as much as three different ones, free of charge!

Galbi tang! and side dishes.

I’m not usually a fan of spicy food, but I did try eating at least a little bit of kimchi if it was ever served to me. Thank goodness a lot of places had rice as a side dish!

The next day I was my first full day by myself. I got myself up a little bit earlier than I would’ve liked, so that I could catch the train and go to Palm Sunday mass at Myeongdong Catholic Cathedral. I got to the station just fine, but the directions on the map didn’t make any sense. I kept going down different side streets hoping I was going in the right direction. Eventually, I could see the spire over the other buildings, but as I walked in the direction of the church, I kept hitting different dead ends, and would have to circle around, before I finally found it. I arrived only ten minutes after Mass had started at 9am, and it turned out to be in English!

The priest was a white foreigner, but everyone else who did the readings at the altar was a Korean student of English. There were other foreigners in the congregation, and I could tell who was also a tourist, because most of them held their backpacks in front of them. Also, since Korea does not have a tropical climate, the blessed palms were small cedar palms. I managed to bring mine back home to Japan in my checked luggage.

The front of Myeongdong Catholic Cathedral.

After church was over, I decided to maybe head to a cafe, and walk around Myeongdong district and do some shopping. However, after walking around a few blocks, I realized most of the stores weren’t going to open for another hour and a half, so I decided to go to the War Memorial Museum.

The War Memorial Museum in Seoul has three main floors, and monuments outside of the building, most of which is dedicated to the Korean war. One of the most striking monuments outside of the museum is a statue depicting two brothers who fought in different sides of the war, and embraced each other when they found each other on the battlefield. Apparently it’s based on a true story.

The two brothers

The base of the monument represents the split of Korea underneath their feet, even though they cling for reunification. If you go inside the monument, inside is a map with dedications to each of the UN countries that helped in the Korean War.

On the other side of the Museum, they had old tanks and warplanes that were once used in the Korean war on display; although  a few tanks were ones from South and North Korea from the past 20 years.

They also had a model South Korean Navy ship from around 2002, that was shot down by North Koreans. As I walked onto the model boat, I couldn’t help but notice some random red painted blotches in some of the fake glass windows. For awhile, I just though it was sloppy repairs, but as I walked further inside, I noticed that more and more of the red painted splotches were around what looked like fake, molded bullet holes.

The museum also had an exhibit dedicated to ancient warfare inside. My favorite part was the model armored “turtleboat” from the 1300’s. So while Japan tried to repeatedly invade Korea, Korea eventually gained an advantage in aquatic warfare with these ships. They weren’t as fast as Japanese ships, but they could make tighter turns, were much more substantial, and would crush the delicate Japanese ships.

Look at how cool the Turtle Boat is!

After the museum, i head back towards Namdaemun Market and Myeongdong, so I could do some shopping. Namdaemun was mostly knock off shoes, clothing and bags. Not much different from many flea markets that I used to see around Italy. I walked through Myeongdong until sunset before I made may to nearby Namsan park, and took the cable car up to the N Seoul Tower. The line for the cable car was a little long, and it was a bit of a wait going up the N Seoul Tower, but I really wanted to see the night view, and I did not feel like walking up the hill to the tower.

View of N Seoul Tower as you leave the cable car.

The N Seoul tower can be seen from many places around Seoul, but the tower itself isn’t that tall, it’s just very far up the hill. It’s not as tall or as big as the Tokyo Tower, or the Tokyo Sky Tree, but the view is just as beautiful. It was hard to take good photos though, because the glare through the windows was pretty bad. The coolest about the N Seoul Tower, was that different signs on different windows would point out which far off cities were in different directions, and listed how far away they were.

North Korea is in that direction.

I took the cable car back down the hill, and went and got dinner back in the Myeongdong district before heading back to my hostel for the night. I got a traditional Korean dish called bibimbap, which is basically a rice pot, with different toppings on top. Underneath all of the my toppings, was this a large amount of chili sauce over the rice. Luckily, many Korean dishes come with a large wooden spoon, along with chopsticks, and I was able to scoop out some of the rice underneath that wasn’t smothered in hot sauce.

Bibimbap

After dinner I trudged back to my hostel, and slumped into my bunk around 10:30 pm, which after that night, was probably the earliest I went to bed the whole time I was in Seoul. When I finally met up with my friends, Teresa, Hanna, Rikki, and the other ALTs, we just kept busy. I made sure to take some advil before bed each night, because we walked so much! I swear I walked more in Seoul than I normally do around Tokyo and Saitama.

Well, I’m going to leave this blog post here for now. I’m getting pretty detailed in some of my adventures, and I still have three more days to talk about! The story continues tomorrow folks! Stay Tuned!