We left early morning Saturday after a late night of hanging around the foreigner holes. I'm meeting more and more people and I'm feeling less like the new kid as each weekend goes by. Its hard to believe that I'm almost at the two month mark. Only 2 more months before I get to see my lovely Ryan!
The news about ex-president Roh's suicide broke while we were on the bus to Seoul. Chris and I were chatting happily (ok maybe I was being a little loud!), and then a grumpy ajuma (phew... ajuma, lets see. An ajuma is a not so gently aging Korean lady. Usually they have short cut, permed hair and can be seen sporting visors, gloves, and scarves no matter what the weather is and wearing brightly floral colored pants and shirts from 1000 won sale piles. Their favorite past time is digging things up from the side of the road and selling their dug up treasures on top of a blanket next to the road. Their second favorite pass time is seeing how hard and fast they can push people out of the way; even when the sidewalk is completely empty, an ajuma will go out of her way to bump into you. They are scary!) Anyway, an ajuma turned around and said "shut up! we are watching tv!" in perfect English. That's when I realized something big had happened. Koreans are saddened by his death. Places are flying the Korean flag. Even though he wasn't immensely popular in his life, he is remembered fondly in his death despite the corruption charges.
After dropping off the puppy, we went to an Indian food buffet. Oh Indian food! It was so good, I ate a ton. It made me miss my mom and our Indian buffet lunches at the Taj Mahal. After pigging out, we headed to Insadong to check out a building that has nothing but musical instruments. I was hoping to find a cheaper accordion or concertina for traveling.
Huge multi-story musical instrument and equipment mall.
The view from the building was really cool, you can see the Samsung building back there.
There were mounds of guitars everywhere. Even Hello Kitty guitars.
Sound boards and amps were precariously stacked everywhere, not a good place to pull a suitcase or wear a backpack to.
Finally found a shuffling old man to guide us to the accordions after what seemed like hours of wandering mazes of guitars, violins, pianos, and every musical instrument and piece of equipment ever made.
Ah! Wrapped up, cheap but VERY expensive Chinese accordions. What a let down, you couldn't even try them out.
After the musical instrument mall we checked out ChangDeokGung, a palace. It was beautiful. I loved it. I love the angles and shapes created by Asian architecture. I took a ton of pictures.
and my favorite, a 650 year old tree. Something about really old trees amaze me. So many people have looked at this tree, sat under it, touched it.
At night we went with the couple that we stayed with to the foreigner casino in COEX. COEX is the largest underground shopping mall/arcade in the world. Its HUGE, you could never see the whole thing in one visit. I would get so lost in a place like that. I did a little shopping there, I bought a shirt with a scooter on and it says 'scooter.' Anyway, the foreigner casino is amazing. When you walk in, the first thing you notice is that its so quite, the quietest casino I've ever seen. The next thing you notice is all the Japanese men rolling big and throwing Won around like its confetti. However, the best and most amazing thing about this casino is that all your drinks(they have a full bar) and food (a full menu) are free, FREE! Oh, its also free to get in, too. I didn't understand it, I still don't! What a crazy deal. You could have only 500 Won to your name, walk in there.. play a slot and get a dinner and drinks. Normally I don't gamble, but I was willing to put down 20,000 for dinner and drinks. I ended up tripling that on roulette, then I won another 7,000 in a slot machine. It was a good night. After the casino we headed to Itaewon, Seoul's foreigner capital. It looks much different at night. There are a ton of "Russian girls" and other night walkers. Also many gay people and non-whites, something you probably won't see outside of Seoul. We had drinks at one very routy foreigner bar, then moved to another. I met a guy wearing a Reggie Bush jersey from Baton Rouge. When we left the bar the sun was coming up. We stood around for awhile trying to figure out what next, and decided to eat. More Indian food!!!! Even better at 5am! It was so good, some of the best I've had since London. Then we went back to the place and crashed.
We all woke up around noon and headed to get some hangover food. Bibimbap, ah bibimbap! So good, so strange. Its rice, veggies, egg, seaweed, umm other stuff and sauce (sometimes) served steaming hot in a bowl. You then mix it all up and eat it with a spoon.
Chris and I then headed to Costco after lunch. This was my first time in a costco type place, it was huge! So much stuff from home too! I'm not yet at the point where I'm missing a lot of food from home, but when I am there.. I will be coming back. We bought a ton of cheese for people back in Gangneung, probably about $300 worth and lots of tortillas. Getting it all back to Gangneung was quite the feat, it was a good thing I was there to help!
This was a really good trip to Seoul. I guess Seoul isn't that bad after all, but I'm still always happy to go back to Gangneung.
This week in Gangneung is the Dan-O Festival, the 3rd largest event in Korea.
No comments:
Post a Comment