Seould Out

Happy Chinese New Year! It's the Year of the Horse.

 

I’m just back from Seoul, which put me as one of the millions of travelers during the Chinese New Year.

When I bought the ticket, I pretty much just tried to go anywhere I could get nonstop. I wound up in Seoul, which, as it turns out, also celebrates the Lunar New Year, so lots of stuff was closed.

But no matter. I mostly just wander on vacation, and this was no different. I had a good time, and thankfully, someone loaned me a heavy coat before I left. I needed it.

 

Really, I was only there two days. My flight went fine, and I even got to the airport fine. I wound up doing option No. 2, the metro, because I am directionally inept and couldn’t find the ticket sales counter for this express bus that goes pretty much from my front door to the airport. But the metro was fine and not too crowded. Less than a buck for a 40-minute ride.

Once in Seoul, it went better than expected. Found the bus into town, got money and got off at the right stop. My flight had been about half an hour late, but that’s usually not a really big deal.

Well, the instructions to the hostel were something like “Get off at this stop, go two blocks and cross the street. It’s in the same building as X restaurant.”

I got off, wondered which street to cross but saw X restaurant a ways away, so I went directly to it. And couldn’t for the life of me figure anything else out. I walked up, down and around trying to figure it out and discovered nothing. Tried to ask the guy at the gate but he spoke no English and waved me off.

There was a 24-hour Krispy Kreme nearby and seriously, I thought I was going to wind up in there for the night. Then I asked some other guy and he’d never heard of it, either, and even looked on his phone and came up empty before asking a street cleaner if he had any idea where it was. That man pointed me across a different street and sure enough, about 10 minutes later, I was there.

Except in that 10 minutes, the host had left. It was then after 11, and closing time for check in is 11. There was a note stuck on the door for me to connect to Wifi and send an email, which would have worked if I had, you know, a laptop or smartphone. I had neither, but fortunately the only other guest in the hostel that night was there and let me in. I was so relieved!

My big walking day was the next day, and even though it was cold the weather was beautiful. I went up to the palace and the historical museum. It was educational but as an English speaker I think I got ripped off. There would be this display of a beautiful traditional garment and the display, in Korean lettering, would be maybe 6-8 lines of text. The English translation following would say something like “Prince’s costume.” I think I might have missed much there.

Still, it was fun to wander. I popped into some restaurant and ate around 4 p.m., recharged, and went again. Probably around 7 p.m. I just was done. Fortunately their subway system is awesome and I really didn’t have to walk all the way back.

By some scheduling quirk, I was the only guest in the hostel that night, but the owner guy was there. I told him I’d wanted to do the DMZ tour but it had been canceled. He looked puzzled, made a call and reported that it was on and could pick me up at 7:30 the next morning. Done.

So, on a very drizzly and foggy day, I did that. It was really interesting. I never realized how close Seoul was to North Korea.

The guide person kept telling us all these awful stories about North Korea, like how they’d put up buildings to pretend there were people living near the border, all happy, but that really the buildings were abandoned or how technically, North Korea was still at war with South Korea and could nuke them at any time. (Spookily, she was very chipper when she said this.) We could see the North Korean border, and she pointed out that you could tell the landscape was different because there were no trees – they had been cut down for fuel.

We didn’t go into the DMZ itself, but to the border and looked over. You couldn’t take photos there, or at least you had to stand back behind this yellow line that blocked any decent shots. It was also fairly foggy at that point, so viewing was lost on me. 

After signing the Panmunjom treaty, North Korea didn’t play nice like they’d promised and started building tunnels – four of them found so far – to Seoul, in an attempt to at some point invade the city.

It didn’t work, and now tourists can visit (but not photograph) the third tunnel that was discovered.

It was really creepy. You walk down this steep slope for about five minutes and then walk through rock, essentially, for another five before you reach a wall. The tunnel goes farther, but that’s all tourists can get to. It’s really short – you have to wear a helmet and I smacked my head several times – and I would totally get claustrophobic in there if I thought too much about it.

Oddly, it was a lot easier to walk up the steep slope than down. Down I kept feeling like I was going to lose my balance and just roll. That would have been painful.

We also visited a railway station, but there weren’t any trains. It’s the last stop in South Korea and the goal was to get North Korea to meet it, which would then have a consecutive rail service from South Korea all the way to Britain. But North Koreans don’t play nice.

Anyway, that was fun. I also ate Krispy Kreme, which was also fun.

Seoul has, just so you know, more coffee shops and more cosmetics/face stories than any place I’ve ever seen. There was a Starbucks at least every three blocks and then the cosmetic stores were just everywhere. I had forgotten my Chapstick (or maybe I lost it; I’m back now and I still haven’t found it) but didn’t have to worry because I could just try a tester every time I needed something.

I had a lousy breakfast the last day. I really wanted something like scrambled eggs or something like that, but no dice. All the coffee shops are just patisseries and things like that. I didn’t want bread.

Finally, I went into the French Baguette place and found the world’s worst ham and egg sandwich. It turned out to be a boiled egg, not scrambled. I’ve maintained this whole time I don’t like hard-boiled eggs and boy, was I right. I could barely choke it down.

But it was a weird experience overall. When I went in, I realized the song playing was pure country. Blake Shelton, to be exact.

There is something inordinately odd about being in Korea, at what’s purported to be a French restaurant and hear the words “chew tobacco, chew tobacco, chew tobacco, spit” coming over the speaker. It reminded me of when I was having the Christmas dinner in Indonesia and heard Toby Keith’s voice. At least that was Christmas music. This was just bizarre.

Anyway I’m back, and of course the back part is always the most stressful.

The absolute BEST perk I’ve experienced is the diplomatic immigration line, but back in China, it’s sort of diluted and called a “special lane.” This means that all kinds of random people wind up there.

Yesterday, it was dumb Australian tourists. I got behind four of them, all in their 20s or so and pretty stupid. Beyond congregating the area (hello, see the sign that says one at a time, stand behind the yellow line?) they didn’t fill out or filled out incorrectly their landing cards, didn’t have the right boarding pass, etc.

I was almost to the front and someone wheeled up a perfectly healthy man who happened to be a in wheelchair. Why he got moved to the front I don’t know. No problem with him using the “special lane,” but the front? Hmm…

Before he’d even been shuffled through, two MORE Australian tourists jumped in front, too. I was ready to scream. Fortunately, another “special lane” opened and I finally made it through and onto the metro.

So next up is hopefully Bangladesh. I actually had the ticket on my screen yesterday and was ready to pull the trigger until I realized I haven’t formally asked for the time off. I think I should do that first.