So this weekend I went to Seoul. I had met a girl (Shaun) through facebook who is currently living there and we had been in touch before I came to Korea. So we contacted each other and I decided to go to Seoul on Friday and stay at her place Friday and Saturday night and head back Sunday morning so i could get the most out of the weekend and not have to send as much time traveling back and forth between Suwon and Seoul.
The trip there was actually not that long. it took a little over an hour and I followed Sean's directions he left me from when he lived here. He's an angel! those directions on how to get to all kinds of places most likely saved me hours of getting lost in the middle of nowhere and not knowing where I am.
I arrived in Seoul at around 5pm and decided I would just walk around and see whatever came my way until 10pm which is when I was meeting up with Shaun, who was just coming back from Japan (she was on vacation). So I did quite a bit of walking and got to see lots of cool places like Deoksugung Palace, the Seoul plaza where they had some kind of market going on which all kinds of food vendors and where they were about to have some kind of music concert. It was packed. Also I took a stroll down Myong-dong where there are lots of stores, kiosks, restaurants, etc. I believe this is considered one of the best tourist shopping centers. So walked and walked and then later at night met up with Shaun. We just hung out at her place until 1 or 2am (don't really remember the time) and then decided to go get some food.
Our food experience: my goodness!!! so we come into this restaurant and of course neither of us speaks Korean. So we could not really understand what was on the menu and so using hand gestures Shaun told the lady to get us whatever she liked best. something spicy. So she comes out with a bunch of sides (here in Korea with pretty much any meal you order you get many many sides which you can refill as many times as you want) Anyways... so we got some sides, then some soup and then the main dish. We were not sure of what it was but tried it and then realized it was chicken feet!! Then, there was this bowl of rice with a plastic glove on it. We thought we would just eat it as a side but I guess that is not how it is eaten. A guy from the restaurant came over and put on the glove. then he started making little rice balls, then put the chicken feet on top and then a piece of kimchee on top of that and then literally fed us on the mouth!!! He would make the balls and tell us to open wide... we were such a mess! it was like 2 year old who did not know what they were doing. such an experience. but they were all really nice about it and understanding of the fact that we had no idea how that particular meal was supposed to be eaten. So anyways... we were there probably for an hour or so, ate really well, and then headed home.
The next day: Saturday: there was supposed to be a picnic at 2pm and so Shaun and I decided to go explore a bit before the picnic. We picked some stuff we wanted to see and headed out. It actually took us quite a while to get to the first place because i think somewhere along the way we took the wrong subway. at any rate... we went to see the Gyongbokgung palace. Oh, on our way over there we bought this candy-like thing on the street and ate it. it was super chewy and sticky but really good. Took us a while to figure out how to eat it. I seriously thought my teeth were going to break. So we get to the palace and first we run into a couple of Korean girls who want to interview us for some school assignment or something. They were super cute! So we helped them out, did the interview and went on our way. We thought it would take us maybe 30-45 minutes to go through the palace but boy were we wrong! It doesn't seem to be that big from the outside but once you go in it just keeps going and going and you keep finding new passage ways and entrances and buildings and all. It was huge! forgot to mention, we got super lucky because as we were arriving they were doing the gate guard change so we got to see that. So we went through the palace, walked around and then at 2:30pm we started heading towards the park where we were meeting up for the picnic with a bunch of foreign girls.
The park: We got to the park but to our surprise it was bigger than we though and had no idea how we would find them. And we forgot to bring one of the girls' phone numbers so we had no way to contact them. So once we were at the park we decided to simply walk around and see if we maybe ran into them. We walked for a while, then sat on a bench in the middle of this one trail for about 30min and then decided to do one more round about and then head out. As we were heading out we saw a bunch of foreign girls and so went to say hello. They all introduced themselves. Some from the US, some from Canada, one from the UK, I think another from the Philippines . and we told them how we had been looking for them, unsuccessfully, etc etc etc . From there we all decided to get some drinks. We went to Insa-dong(i think this was it) and went to a restaurant and had some drinks, chatted for a while, armed wrestled, it was great! this was at around 6pm i think. Then we decided to go to a hookah bar that was close by. It was super cool. Was set up so that when you come in is like you are entering some kind of cave and labyrinth. All white on the inside... anyways... it was super cool. That place is now officially the best hookah bar I have been to. We were there for while and then decided we needed to go do some dancing. So we went to this bar called The Pink sthg (i believe-not sure), which of course was full of Asian ladies. We all did lots of dancing and then eventually when we ran out of energy headed back. Dana, who also lives in Suwon like I, came back with Shaun and I so she and I could head back together in the morning, since we both live pretty close to each other.
All in all, it was a great weekend. Met lots of wonderful people, saw many cool palaces, plazas, districts etc...danced, was in great company... need to do this again sometime soon! Though i am not sure about staying up ever night until 5 or 6am. I am now 22 and seriously, its sad, but I simply do not have the energy to be out at those late hours of the night.
till next time!
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