Seoul – South Korea – 1st – 7th December

We landed on the tarmac in Seoul, which was a bit of a surprise at the time as it was raining and totally misty so we only saw the ground at the very last minute. We weren’t expecting it seeing as we landed ahead of schedule even though we took off late. 

Having left glorious sunshine in Hiroshima it was not very welcoming to see rain and thick mist like fog. We knew the weather was going to be sunny for the foreseeable though so we didn’t mind.

It was good to see some of the female staff in the airport in traditional dress. It felt like a different country already. We bought tickets for a coach to our hotel. As we walked out to find the coach it was about to leave and they rushed us on without us being able to check how long the journey would take and how many stops before we got to ours. 

Glen tried to speak to a lady passenger for advise but she couldn’t speak English. Glen pointed to a map and kept talking to her anyway. Lol! She obviously understood what we were trying to ask her because she rang an English speaking friend and put him on to Glen! Bless her. He said what Glen had assumed, that the lady had told the driver where we wanted to get off. The guy on the phone said the driver would tell us when it’s time to get off. The lady then left at the next stop. Much talking went on by way of us saying thank you and her saying….  well we have no idea! Lol! Then some time later the driver started shouting in Korean and waving his arms about. As no one moved or looked up we assumed it must be our stop. He was in a rush and he all but threw our bags, and us, off the bus. lol! 

So there we were, stood in the rain trying to put our rain macs on and stuffing other things in to the backpacks before putting the rain covers on, all the while getting wet and feeling cold! Suddenly two ladies came along and held their umbrella over us and started to help us. They obviously took pity on the old foreign couple fumbling around in the rain. What a lovely welcome to Korea. 

Our hotel was by the Cheonggyecheon Stream.

Our first morning waking up in Seoul was a beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies. We put four layers on before we went out to walk to the Gyeongbokgung Palace but we still felt the cold!

Having spent hours in the biting cold wind walking and exploring we had a lovely meal of hot spicy Korean stew. If only the toilets weren’t on the top floor with all the windows open and no heated seats! Japan we miss you!

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People either had traditional outfits on (hired from the shops like they did in Japan) or the long thick padded coats like you see football managers wearing on the side of the pitch!

We watched a re-enactment at the Gyeongbokgung Palace and all I could think was, they must be b****y freezing! The fake stick on beards would have helped keep them warm though I guess. lol! 

Glen bought a bobble hat and I was sooo tempted to buy these big knickers. My thin ‘no-visable panty line’ M&S knickers are useless here. lol! 

How about that! A hat that only cost the equivalent of £3 and it had his name on it! Glen wasn’t impressed as he was convinced it was a women’s hat!

Glen made a friend! We were taking a photo of a Winnie the Pooh advert of some sort at the time, in a restaurant window for Lauren, and this man had asked us why! Fair question I suppose. 

Everyone wants to talk about football when they know you are from England! He was one of the few people here wearing a hat, most don’t, even though it’s below freezing.

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We are enjoying the food here but we still have to be careful to avoid offal and certain seafood. (I won’t dwell on the true stories of the Octopus tentacles they sell that can choke you as you eat it freshly killed with the suckers still pulsating!)

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There is plenty of street food here, even in this bitterly cold weather. They are a hardy lot in Seoul.

The Zebra crossings are different here. They are double, parallel crossings. Arrows instruct people to walk on the right hand crossing but people walk both ways on both crossings, they are rule breakers here not rule followers like in Japan! Lol!

We were looking at some mystery food on a street food stall the other day. The lady cooking and selling the food could not speak English and we couldn’t read her signs. There was a local man waiting to buy something so we asked him if he spoke English (in the hope he could explain to us what they were selling) but he said “no English” and looked apologetic. Then he said “Brexit!” We then had one of those brief conversations where by we all spoke but neither side understood, but it didn’t matter. As we walked away we said “Brexit” shrugged, and rolled our eyes!

We’ve had these metal cups in China and here in South Korea, we welcome them because it means ’free’ water! How things have changed.  Anyway they put me in mind of the Koshari place in Sherry Street in Hurghada…..and school dinners!! 

This man makes the best Hotteok (pancake snack with a sweet filling of nuts, brown sugar and cinnamon) We know this, not only because we had one from another stall the day before, but because people were queuing while he made them. Even though the stall next door had a pile of them ready to sell. They preferred to wait for this man’s version.  He surprised us the first time we bought one as we were stood there discussing what might be inside when he suddenly started talking to us in English…. with a weird American accent. lol!

We do still have techno toilets in the hotel rooms just not in all of the restaurants and public toilets. Our second hotel in Seoul had this instruction panel.

Now is it me or was this giving two choices re the water/cleaning options? The one on the left being for external water/cleaning and the one on the right looks very much like it would be internal!!! I wasn’t going to be pressing either to find out! Oh my god I’ve just been taking to Glen about this and he now tells me he tries out all of the buttons on each toilet! I now know exactly what they all do…. I wish I didn’t 😂

Just when we thought the complimentary Green tea couldn’t get any healthier…. our second hotel had brown rice in their green tea! 🙄😂

The Metro here play a little fanfare when the train is about to arrive. So cute.  (smile)

We’ve been trying to ignore the fact there have been Starbucks cafes EVERYWHERE in China, Hong Kong and Japan!! But I feel I need to make reference to it now as there seems to be even more here in South Korea. There have been so many more than McDonald’s, KFC or Burger King. I wish I had shares in Starbucks!! We’ve seen lots of Zara and Lush stores everywhere too. Here there seems to be lots of ‘Paris Baguette’ and ‘The Twosome Place’ (a South Korean coffee house chain) everywhere too. I thought it was a strange choice of name for a coffee house chain as it doesn’t sound the sort of place that would welcome people on their own or groups of three or more people! 

We caught the subway to The Gangnam area of Seoul. “Gangnam-gu is Seoul’s upscale, modern center, home to gleaming skyscrapers, designer brands and stylish nightclubs where big-name DJs spin techno and house. Dining options span high-end restaurants to bars.”

As we were walking along the very long Gangnam Daero* I said to Glen excitedly  “well I never thought I would be walking in the area of Seoul where the “Gangnam style” song was written about and where they filmed the video!” (big smile) He looked at me, rolled his eyes and said  “neither did I!” (Sigh) He’s no fun. lol!

Daero* Introduced in 2011, Korean streets have names, typically ending in -daero, -ro or -gil and they are classified by width; -daero over 8 lanes, -ro 2~7 lanes and -gil, others. (Another bit of useless information unless the question comes up in a pub quiz!)

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For those of you who have no idea what I’m taking about ….Dad!? 😉

“Gangnam Style” is a Korean-pop single by the South Korean entertainer called Psy.

Click here to see the video…. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

This video had a record number of views back in 2012, over a billion! The phrase “Gangnam Style” is a Korean neologism  that refers to a lifestyle associated with the Gangnam District of Seoul. 

I sooo wished I had our girls with me, I felt sure they would have got on the stage and danced with me. I stood there trying to brave up to go on the little stage but ended up just walking away. I looked back longingly and saw a rare sight… two British looking tourists. They too were looking at the stage! I said to Glen, “shall I go and ask the two girls if they would get on the stage with me?” Glen said  “you don’t know what to do” and so I showed him the dance and he said that I looked like a chicken and that he wouldn’t have me doing that on the stage!  🤣

As a general rule of thumb in Japan, if a restaurant had bright lights it would be within our price range. China on the other hand was probably the other way around. Here in South Korea it’s not as easy to determine until you check the menu. When we slow down (for slow down read ‘find a cheap country we can spend longer in without filling our day visiting the local Temples, Shrines, Zen Gardens, Great Walls, famous clay statues and cuddly black and white and less loved red version of bears’) I intend to publish a blog of all the good food we’ve eaten, rather than the photos we’ve shown you of the food we would not have touched with a bamboo pole. (wink) 

We walked to Gwangjang market one night. It was dark and empty apart from the last few stall holders clearing up. The stalls/carts were all covered in cloth and tied around with rope. We read that they close at 6pm. Glen said the food stalls stay open until 11am but there didn’t seem to be any sign of food. Then in the distance we saw lights and we eventually came across an alley of food stalls. They had seating for about ten people on each one. We walked around and eventually chose one to sit at. They were all serving the same things so it was pot luck which one was the best place, maybe they were all good. We sat down by three men and a lady and we immediately hit it off.  They couldn’t speak any English but they offered us a drink and we ‘chatted’ on 😀 When they left four other men came along and we raised our glasses. Somehow Glen was ‘talking’ to them about football. Apparently, unbeknown to me, Tottenham has a player who is from South Korea, well I never. (wink)

Anyway before we left I asked to take their photo but the lady of the stall indicated that she would take it of all of us. The guy on the right of the photo, that I was stood by seemed the most fun so I started doing the Gangnam style dance and he joined in! Lol! All the guys laughed and seemed surprised so I guess they don’t have many tourists let a lone an old bird with a headscarf on (that makes her look like an Eastern European grandmother) who then breaks in to a dance that was famous in their county 7 years ago, Lol! Anyway we obviously made an impression and they appreciated our company because they insisted on paying our bill! We indicated that we would not let them do that but the lady whose stall it was ‘said’ they were insisting! It was only 9000 won (£6) but what a lovely gesture. Such lovely people.

The finger gesture they are making is, apparently, a heart sign. People seemed to appreciate it when we made the gesture after enjoying snacks at their food stalls.

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I’m not sure if I mentioned this before (I definitely forgot to put their photo on the “China people blog”) But a couple in Guilin paid our bill without us realising, after we had been talking to them across the room during lunch. They were from San Francisco but were of Chinese decent. Again it was only about the equivalent of £4 but such a lovely gesture.

Back to Seoul……We decided to stop at another place in the market. We asked three young people on the table next to ours if they spoke English as we wanted to know how to order the little bottles of white ‘opaque’ drink they had on their table.  That started off the making of more friends. Kim 34 and his girlfriend age 28 whose name we’ve forgotten (sorry!) and also their friend Kim aged 40 (we only understood the ‘Kim’ part of their names which we think is the family name – apologies to both ‘Kims’) The 40 year old ‘Kim’ turns out to be a West Ham fan Paul! So we talked about you and showed him a photo. (He is now following us on Instragram) He has since contacted us to say that he would be working hard on his English. I don’t know how long it will be before he will be able to read about himself in this blog but…. “Hi, ‘Kim’, thank you so much for sharing your favourite snack, beef jerky, with us. We will eat it on our next train journey.” 

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We had walked past a little old record shop on the way to the market and when we walked back home it was closed but it was still playing music into the empty streets. It was playing Stupid Cupid of all the songs! Madness in the middle of Seoul in 2019, but amazing too.

Talking of madness. ‘Taesil are shrines which stored the placenta and umbilical cords of the children of the royal family. Next to the shrine is an inscribed stone tablet with a story about the placenta of King Seongjong. This stone tablet is known as a taesilbi.’  What the hec was that about!

Changgyeonggung Palace and park

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It was so cold at night, -10 degrees, lakes in the park were still partly frozen at midday.

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If you walk ‘off piste’ in cities you get to see some interesting things. One back alley had caldron after cauldron of pig‘s heads boiling away, alongside lots of guitar shops. We were too close, and the only people squeezing past the snouts and boiling broth to be taking any photos! 

The Korean’s traditional dress reminds me of those toilet roll covers back in the 70s! I don’t mean to be disrespectful I’m just saying. 

Our budget wouldn’t stretch to hiring traditional outfits to wear to the local Palaces and Temples so this was the next best thing. It reminded us of home…. well Weston Super Mare seafront. lol! ‘Kiss me quick’ (wink) 

People seem to queue for a good restaurant or cafe here like they did in Japan and China. Even in the freezing temperatures. The cafes put a little tent outside with a heater in to keep the customers warm while they wait! Some had heaters outside along the place where people queued.

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We were wondering whether to go to the Demilitarized Zone to peep over towards North Korea but then we found out that the decision had been made for us. It was closed due to the swine flu epidemic. 

We walked up to Seoul Tower in sunshine but it was bitterly cold at the top. However the breathtaking 360 degree view was worth not feeling my face and our mobile phones shutting down due to the freezing temperature! There were views of the mountains, the Hangang River and skyscrapers etc as far as the eye could see all around us. We were told that Seoul is a “sprawling city” but it is set in an interesting landscape and has a homely feel in each of the areas we visited. We stayed in three different hotels within the same area, it felt like a village within a city.

As the sun set the city colours changed from window glass blue to warm yellow.

We’ve seen trees here having been wrapped in straw or pots covered in straw lids. Apparently it’s to protect certain types of trees and dormant plants from the Korean Winter weather. We could have done with a straw covering at times, the weather here has been bitterly cold some days. One night I swear I could feel my eye balls starting to freeze! 

Some trees just had straw ‘belts’ which we’ve learnt are to encourage insects to lay their eggs in, instead of the bark which can damage the trees. Although it’s mostly customary; a symbol of the season. 

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Almost all of the trees that line the streets are Gingko trees. They are hardy enough to get through the winter so they don’t need any straw wrapping. 

We read…. “Ginkgo, also known as maidenhair, is the oldest surviving tree on earth. It is believed to be even older than dinosaurs. Revered for its beauty and its longevity, the ginkgo is considered a living fossil since it has remained unchanged for more than 200 million years.”

There was a Gingko tree in one of the parks in Hiroshima and we were told that it had survived the Atomic bomb blast and has kept growing ever since.

We mainly visit old Temples wherever we go but we came across this church with a pretty walk up to it. Enticing and potentially ‘catching’ followers to their faith like venous fly traps catch flies, I thought! Lol!

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The air here is so clear, I mentioned to Glen about it and he said “it’s like viewing everything in HD” (smile) Looking at Courtney’s photos of Queenstown in New Zealand it is the same there.

So, we love the people, the food and the clear air here in Seoul but it’s time to go south…. we are going to the seaside! (Smile)