For the fourth and final time, Theo came to join me on my travels! When we first looked at flights, we saw a too-good-to-be-true flight for around $900 SEA-ICN roundtrip. It was unavailable, of course. But, at 1am, I happened to look again, saw that it was available, woke Theo up, handed him his credit card and my laptop, and then Korea was a go! I got to South Korea a few days before he did and tried my best not to see any too-noteworthy sights so that I could save them for us to explore together. I did end up learning a ton about the Korean War (which for some reason I knew nothing about?!) at the War Memorial of Korea and visiting the Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon. I picked up Theo at the airport after a couple days and we were off straightaway to Busan.
Mosaic at the War Memorial
Busan: Busan is about 4-5 hours away from Seoul on the southeast coast of South Korea. Seafood is BIG here and I’m almost certain we had it with every meal. Our first and last meals were at the famous Jagalchi Fish Market:
If you have Korean language skills, you can select the fish you want from one of the many vendors downstairs, and then they’ll cook it and serve it to you upstairs. Having no such skills, we went with a standard sashimi, barbeque (PAH-peh-Q), and soup brunch. It was a ton of food for the two of us, but not particularly appetizing or exciting. The sashimi consisted of two kinds of generic white fish, the barbeque consisted of a fishy fish, and the soup was just shy of being salt water with fish bones in it. It was our most expensive meal at 50,000 KRW (~$44) and for me, one of the least appetizing. The second time we went to Jagalchi, we knew enough to refuse the sashimi and barbeque set. We were actually on a quest for live squid… success!
From left to right: Sea squirt, sea cucumber, abalone; Live squid in the center!
Jacky spoke English and worked out a deal for us to try sea squirt, abalone, sea cucumber, and live squid. Once you get over the fact that the squid is still moving as you pick it up with your chopsticks and put it in your mouth, it tastes quite good! The big pieces would suction against our tongues :)
Cable Car to Geumjeong Fortress
I like Busan. We spent our days eating well, sightseeing, and relaxing. We caught the Aquatique show at Lotte Mall (not particularly impressive), went for a cable car ride and hike around the Geumjeong Fortress (beautiful!), visited the beach and the world’s biggest sashimi center, enjoyed the food stalls in the Busan International Film Festival area, and started season 1 of The Wire. We didn’t end up eating at the sashimi center because we didn’t want the same generic white fish again and couldn’t communicate in Korean what we wanted (live squid) or the Four Seasons restaurant that supposedly offered it. Instead, we ended up eating all we could at a Korean barbeque chain called Barbie’s. We ate until we hated ourselves and then the meat burps began…
@ Gwangali Beach
Korean people have been very kind to us. At the food stalls for instance, a guy told us about a spicy gimbap (seaweed wrapped rice roll) that burns your mouth. He pointed, mimed eating it, and then exhaled while fanning his mouth. Probably just for sheer entertainment value, he bought us one. It doesn’t burn so much, but there is all this heat that suddenly enters your mouth after swallowing. You could feel the heat going down your body too :) Also, when we wanted to extend our reservation at the Elysee Motel but couldn’t because they were fully booked, the owner set us up at another place, drove us there a couple kilometers away, and checked out the room with us to make sure it was okay. So nice!
Seoul: We took the free tourist bus from Busan to Seoul that is awesome! (There’s a free service from Seoul to Busan and back for foreigners, the idea being that foreigners should explore cities beyond Seoul.) You’re not technically supposed to use it for one-way travel, and though I felt guilty the entire bus ride, I feel great about it now :) Our first order of business in Seoul was a DMZ/Panmunjeon tour. This was awesome! We went from Camp Kim to Camp Bonifas for a briefing, then had to take military transport to the JSA/Panmunjeon area. Panmunjeon is where talks and negotiations are still held.
North Korea - hoisting an "extremely large" flag to prove superiority
We got to enter the room with two very intense, “ROK-ready” soldiers on guard; they lock the North Koreans out when there are tourists inside the room. (They used to only have one soldier on guard but at some point, when a South Korean soldier was trying to lock the door, he got pulled in from the North Korean side so now they have two.) Rok-ready is, I think, a taekwondo fighting stance where the soldiers stand upright, feet hip-width apart, and place their hands in fists at their sides. You could take pictures with the ROK soldiers, but Theo wouldn’t get close enough to see them do their “warning-you-are-too-close” stomps.
While outside, you could see soldiers on guard on the North Korean side … it’s an eerie place knowing how precarious the situation is.
I didn’t find the DMZ part of the tour as interesting because it felt so commercialized and touristy. You can walk through the third tunnel and when they finish building it, you’ll be able to take the monorail down to the start of the tunnel…. We also didn’t get the best view from the Dora Observatory because the weather was quite bad. Our last stop was to Dorasan station which will eventually allow you to take the train from Dorasan to Pyeongyang in North Korea. Preemptive much? From what I understand, Korea is a long way away from unification so this fancy (and probably expensive to build) station seems like a bit of a waste.
I think I heard that Obama went on a tour of the JSA/Panmunjeon area as well. I’m not saying it’s his fault, but because tours weren’t open to the public from March 24th-March 27th, we had to rearrange our whole schedule and instead of seeing the cities of Gyeong-ju, Busan, Jeju Island, and Seoul, we had to settle for just Busan and Seoul. You saw a lot of signs for the Nuclear Security Summit while walking around in Seoul but the extensive police force on the street was apparently unrelated.
We happened upon a protest that we found out was a labor party demonstration. It was strange… at the start, they all started dancing and then the police assisted them with their dinner setup. It didn’t seem like a tense atmosphere at all, with the police being relaxed and happily letting us know that there was a demonstration going on.
In Seoul itself, we spent a lot of time exploring palaces and shrines. They’re okay. Increasingly, I realize that I’m not so impressed by things just because they are old. If they are otherwise captivating, then I’m pretty enthusiastic about a visit. Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung (+ Secret Garden), Deoksugung, Changgyeongung, and the Jongmyo Shrine were all just okay. I’m glad I got to see them, but I never really have to see them again and probably will forget them soon.
Outside of Gyeongbokgung Palace
...and inside the palace grounds
We wandered through the major shopping areas of Namdaemun, Dongdaemun, and Myeongdong. Namdaemun was good for souvenir and seaweed shopping, Dongdaemun had an amazing hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving a pot of spicy whole boiled chicken:
Myeongdong had a really great takalbi (chicken stir fry):
The markets in Seoul were always fun too!
On Saturday night, we went out in Dongdaemun, had a blast at a noraebang (private karaoke room), and then danced to K Pop at a club in Hongdae.
Dongdaemun
On food: I had been warned about the food in Korea being pretty repetitive and getting old fast. I think if I hadn’t had a friend in Suwon, I would have been pretty unhappy. It’s exciting to have all those side dishes, but I feel like one can only have so much pickledness and kimchi. In the US, I feel like there are three Korean foods that are pretty popular: Bibimbap (vegetables/meat on top of rice), Bulgogi (thin-sliced fatty beef), and Korean BBQ.
typical Korean BBQ
Bibimbap
One of my favorite Korean foods: Sundubu!
I think bibimbap and bulgogi are some of the least tasty things we ate on our trip. Standard Korean BBQ also becomes boring because the cuts of meat are so ridiculously fatty that, while you can stomach them in lettuce wraps, they make you feel horrible afterwards. I would never have heard of the takalbi, spicy boiled whole chicken, kimchi haemul pajeon (seafood kimchi pancake), and this soup with chunks of pork falling off the bone if it weren’t for Hanna. My best meals were with her :)
Who’s Hanna?: Hanna is a friend from Cal and an amazing host! Hanna and I were RAs (Resident Assistants) together in 2005 and though we pretty much haven’t spoken in six years, she was as great and fun as I remember her being. :) I stayed with her in Suwon (just outside of Seoul) both before and after Theo left. She introduced me to amazing foods and it was with her that Theo and I had a great night out in Dongdaemun and Hongdae. Thanks Hanna for an amazing time in Korea!
I put Theo on a bus bound for Incheon International Airport after a rushed takalbi lunch with Hanna. Although I will be home in about three months, I still surprised myself with some farewell tears. Theo got upgraded to first class flying South Korea to Vancouver while I set about researching Turkey!
Up Next: Skipping Russia, Istanbul, and Pamukkale!
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