Made it to Korea!!!!

I sit here in the Vancouver public library on a computer since I arrived early in the morning off of a night bus and don’t feel like doing too much, so decided to head to the library and bang out a blog post for y’all.  I don’t want to get too far behind and it was nice that the Library had full on computers so I could also do some research on what I was going to do while in Vancouver.  Anyways, this post is about Korea so enough about Canada.  This ended up being a really long post.  I had to do a bit more writing at Tim’s place and am now finishing this at my home in Niagara.

I took a late night flight from Macau to Seoul which had me landing pretty early in the morning.  I dropped my big back at the hostel but they would not let me check in until 3pm and so I had to kill some time.  My brother in law lived in Korea for a year and had told me that there were Korean spas called Jimjilbang where there were soaking pools, saunas, restaurants, arcades and the key amenity….. sleeping rooms.

I did a bit of research on not only which one I should head to but also how to act and what to do once I arrived.  I decided on the Dragon Hill spa and resort because it seemed to be foreigner friendly as well as have a lot of cool amenities for the price of admission.

I took the train there and when i arrived I was given a towel and a change of clothes as well as a key to a locker.  I was also required to remove my shoes prior to entering and there were separate lockers available near the entrance for them.  Once you enter, there is a mens only section that includes the change room and men only bathing pools as well as a mens only sleeping area.  I changed into my “uniform” and then headed to the sleeping room for a solid 4 hour nap.  There were thin mats and hard wooden like blocks for pillows, but the floor was warmed so it was easy to pass out there, especially when you had only gotten maybe 3 hours of sleep the night before.

After my nap, I dropped my drawers and headed into the bathing area.  There are showers near the entrance which are used to give yourself a really thorough cleaning and scrub prior to entering the pools.  Many people shave, and brush their teeth here as well in order to feel clean and fresh.  You then enter the pools of various temperatures in whatever order you would like.  There was also a sauna in the bathing room as well as different types of water, like salt and mineral water baths.  I stayed there for a little while soaking and relaxing with the other naked Korean men and then eventually put my outfit back on to check out some of the common spaces of the place.  In the main floor there was a restaurant and arcade as well as various sauna type rooms, which included a cold room, salt floor, various methods of heating etc.  These are mainly meant for couples to be able to relax together but obviously i was alone, so I just checked out a few and then had another nap in the middle of the floor, which was totally legit.  I also ordered a sik hye, which is a Korean rice drink to refresh myself after all of the hot places and sweating.

After finishing up at the spa, I took the train over to the site of the 1988 summer Olympics to catch a Korean baseball game.

My former coworker from the Korean office was meeting me there with his family and we were going to catch the game.  A few minutes before the game started it began to rain a little bit and the game did start but was delayed and finally called after one inning.  I was dissapointed, but i did get to experience a small taste of Korean baseball and what i did see was pretty awesome.  The seating is based on who you are cheering for and in this case the home team took up most of the stadium and the visitors had a tiny section on the third base line.

When each team got up to bat the cheering would start and they would not stop until the inning was over.  The home team in this case was the Doosen Bears and when they came up to bat, there were 4 cheerleader dancers and a main guy who led all of the cheers.  They had a bunch of cheers and everyone was standing up and cheering while the Bears were up to bat.

It was a cool experience and probably would have been cooler if the rain had held off.  The stands looked emptier than they normally would be due to the rain.  I enjoyed my experience and am glad Peter invited me.  After the game Peter drove us to his area of the city and we went to a great hole in the wall restaurant that made excellent korean food.  We talked about Korean drinking culture and they taught me how to be respectful when drinking in Korea.  Main rules, always use two hands when pouring, never pour your own drink, always pour the drink for the elder and first.  If an elder tells you to drink you drink and if a glass is empty on the table it is often filled.  If you don’t want to drink anymore, just leave your drink half full and you will be good.  It was a super fun day and night but i needed some actual sleep, so I headed back to my hostel on the train!  That evening before heading to bed, I needed to do a bunch of research on what i was going to do the next day.  I met a guy named Carson and he was down to go for an adventure walk with me, so we decided to meet up in the morning and go for a gander around the area.

Our first stop was the Mangwon market, which was located a short walk from our hostel.  We ate some street meat and took our chances sitting down at a restaurant that didn’t have an English menu, but everyone seemed to be ordering the same noodle dish, so we asked for one and got whatever came.  Ended up being pretty delicious but had to continue the wander.

After a few nibbles on some random street food, we headed for an area of town that was recommended top us by a person at the Hostel.  That route took us along the Han river which was beautiful until the dark clouds started to roll in.

Luckily when the skies did open up, we were right beside a navy museum which offered a roof over our heads as the skies didn’t just unleash rain on us, but pretty large hail stones as well.

Luckily the storm didn’t last long and we got to check out two big navy boats and a cut in half submarine.  Walking around the boats was pretty cool and very much enjoyable.

After finishing up at the Navy museum, we continued our walk and decided to take a stop at the public outdoor gym equipment.

These parks turn workout area, seem to be very common in  a lot of spots through out Korea and are well frequented by the locals in the morning.

We screwed around for a bit then headed across the bridge to the other side of the river, where we arrived at the part of the city that was recommended to us.

Turns out it was pretty dead and mostly government buildings, so we had a fruit smoothy then jumped back on the train to come home.  Peter (former coworker) has offered to take me out to dinner for some Korean BBQ and show me around a bit, so I had to get back to meet up with him.

I met Peter and he showed me around some of the area including the Korean #1 historical object (The Sungnyeyum Gate) as well as the Myeong Dong Market area.  We wandered past the central train station and then headed to a Korean BBQ restaurant where we met up with some other former co-workers.  It was a great night and we had some delicious food and drank plenty of Beer and Soju.

After dinner I headed back to the hostel and met up with a guy i had met in the Hostel named Carson who was down to go out that night.

We also met a few others that were planning on going out and so we hit the town.  The initial entertainment district we chose was Hongdae but it turns out that due to the many univerities in the area, they appeal to the younger crowd and would only let people in that were younger than 28 which means I was not able to gain entry.  This was the first time in my life that I was ID’d and got rejected because i was too old instead of being too young.  We tried a few other places with similar results, so we decided to change areas and headed to Itaewon, which is another entertainment district across town.  We had much better luck here and ended up art a pretty fun place for which we stayed all night long eventually leaving the place around 4am.

Since the trains started running again at 5, we opted to grab some food and wait out the trains to start moving again.  We had met some local Korean’s in the club and hung out with them into the morning.

It was unfortunate though because I was switching hostels that day and check out was at 10am, so I went back, slept for a few hours then got up at 9:30am to check out.  The hostel i was moving to did not allow check ins until 2 or 3pm so i went down to the lounge of the initial hostel and had a nap in their lounge area.  It was decently comfortable and I got a nice recharge sleep down there.  I then headed to my new hostel which was in close proximity to the Hyatt which is where i would be staying the following few nights.  After checking into the hostel, I headed off on an adventure walk through the nearby park and up the hill to Seoul Tower.

It was a beautiful walk and I decided to pay the small fee required to go up the tower.  It provided a beautiful view of Seoul, and I was even able to send a postcard from the top of the tower, which was neato burrito.

I got a bunch of photos and then headed down the tower towards the area where once again Peter wanted to share a famous Korean dish.  I met walked down form the tower and met him at the base of the cable car which you have the option to take up the hill to the tower, although i opted to walk up and down since it wasn’t that far or high.  We then walked a bit down the street to a place which served huge pork cutlets (Donkkaseu).

It was a delicious meal and the company was great.  Peter was so generous with his time to show me a round and take me to some of his favorite places and so I thank him very much for the hospitality.

Due to the fairly action packed night before, I opted to take the night off and simply returned to my hostel and did a bit of blog writing and planning.  The next morning I got up early and went for a run along the river, which was very pleasant.

It was nice to get out for some exercise.  I packed my bag and left it at the Hostel so that i could return later to retrieve it and not have to lug it around all day.  I had been told that within Seoul there was an older section of town, which had historic buildings and was a nice place to go for a stroll.  So I jumped on the train and headed up to Bukchon Village for a day of wandering.

There were tons of people dressed in traditional Korean dress, taking photos among the old buildings and I will admit it was very photogenic  and would be a fun afternoon activity.  I opted not to dress up and just wandered around enjoying the scenery and the people that did decide to dress up.

I then continue down south to a shopping street which had a lot of restaurants and street food and so i continued to wander and enjoy the scenery.

While I was sitting trying to figure out what I was going to do next, I was approached by a young lady who asked me if I liked Korean culture and would be interesting in attending a ceremony to celebrate Korean culture and learn more about it.  I declined and continue on my way, but wasn’t exactly sure what that was.  I decided I wanted to check out Gagnam and so I jumped on the train and headed south to this famous area of Seoul, obviously made famous by the PSY song Gangnam Style.

This is a bustling area filled with high end shops and assorted food places.  It was another place which had a lot of scenery to enjoy, although in this case it was more the modern buildings and high end shops.  It was here that I was approached by another young lad who asked me if I was interested in Korean Culture and was interested in a ceremony.  This peaked my interest.  If you want to read more about the specifics of what happened…. click on the mini post about it CLICK HERE.

Once I returned from the cult ceremony, I had plans to meet up with Carson at a brewery and so I made my way towards him.  There were a few breweries on the way down to the one we said we were going to met at and I had some time so I stopped at Bronx Beer and Craft Hans for a beer at each.

Carson and I opted to get some Korean BBQ prior to continuing our beer night and luckily there was one right across the street from the next brewery.  We shared some delicious BBQ meat and then headed across the street to the Pong Dang Craft beer company.

We played a few retro video games and enjoy some beer, then headed further south to the next stop on our crawl, Garasu Brewing.

That ended the solo part of my Seoul travels as Angelo was about to land and we would be hanging out for the next few days.

His flight landed and we eventually ended up in the Itaewon area where we decided to go to the Canadian bar called Canucks.  This place was truly amazing and I’m not really sure why this is a thing in Korea, but it for sure gave me all of the feels.  They had a lot of little touches that made it really feel patriotic.  I’ll throw a bunch of photos for your viewing pleasure.

After enjoying the scenery at Canucks, we headed into the entertainment are of Itaewon and ended up dancing the night away.

The next morning Angelo and I had a tour booked for the DMZ.  This is one specific area of the world that is impossible to access, unless you are on a tour.

The tour takes you to the freedom bridge and a lookout before crossing into the actual DMZ and visiting the 3rd infiltration tunnel that North Korea dug at some point to prepare for a large scale invasion if one was ever needed.

It is not clear when the tunnel was dug, but it was discovered in 1978 and when it was discovered, North Korea said that it was a coal mining tunnel and had spread coal on the walls to try and mask the blast holes.

We were shown a video prior to descending into the tunnel and it was chalked full of propaganda.  In fact the whole DMZ was basically a show of propaganda as well as a display of how childish two countries can be to one another.

This is a bit scary seeing as how one has nuclear weapons.  The two things that stood out to me in this front was the flag pole size on either side of the border.  North Korea put up a large flagpole, then South Korea put up a bigger one and it went back and forth until North Korea had built the 4th largest flagpole in the world.  The other thing that I thought was ridiculous was that the south used to have hundreds of loud speakers pointing into North Korea that generally just played K-pop and other assorted pop culture items.  They had only stopped playing it that week before when the joint meeting between the two leaders took place.

After exploring the tunnel (unfortunately they did not allow photos in the tunnel but here is one from the internet instead.  We did take a bunch of photos outside at various photo opportunities.

After the tunnel we bussed up to the observatory which was on top of a nearby hill.  This is the closest you can get to the border because of the tunnel.

Since the tunnel was located, they moved the DMZ to be closer since the North already broke the agreement, this allowed for a better view of various North Korea landmarks.  We spent some time looking out over the countryside and enjoyed the propaganda towns that both the South and the North have built even though nobody really lives there.  We then headed to the train station which is fairly new (completed in 2002) and is a mainly symbolic station in the hope that one day the South and North will re-unify.

After the train station we hit a typical tour company ploy of stopping at a shopping stop for purchases and in this case it was a ginseng stop.  We had to stay there for over 45 minutes before the bus rolled out back towards Seoul.

Angelo did a quick spit stop at the hotel and then headed back to Gagnam for THE GREAT KOREAN BEER FESTIVAL!!!!

This beer festival had several breweries from all over Korea gather in K-pop plaza.  You could pay per beer $6 or you could buy one of two packages which gave you a taste of 6 pre determined beers for $21.

We opted to do the taster deal and then supplement with single purchases if needed.  I had seen on social media that another one of our friends was currently in Seoul and so Devin and his coworkers joined us as well.  We tried several beers and generally they were pretty good.  I didn’t have many standouts but there weren’t many duds.  My brother in law lived in Korea for a year and told me that one of his friends was a brewer and happened to be at the beer festival.  I headed over to “The Ranch” and asked if the owner knew Derrick.

He was like, your sister must be Amanda and they just had a kid.  I was like yuppp, and we talked about Korean beer and that specific beer festival and how it wasn’t as beneficial to the brewers as he had expected.  It sounds like the beer festival there ran in a different way than the typical one in California.

In California, the breweries typically donate the beer and in return they get exposure and advertising.  The cost of the festival typically goes towards logistical costs and then rest will typically go to some sort of charity.  It sounded like in Korea, they had to pay an entrance fee and then try and get back their money by selling beer.  I like the California approach and hope they can share this type of idea to the rest of the world.

The beer festival was super fun, but we all really had a craving for fried chicken and beer (Chimeak) so we set off to find a solid place.  Luckily Angelo is pretty familiar with Seoul and had the perfect place in mind.  We got a lot of chicken and a pretty good helping of beer and had a great time.  Our friend’s last name is Cass and so getting to hang out with him while drinking Cass beer is pretty great!

During dinner we had told the crew about the Canadian bar and they really wanted to check it out, so we decided to head back there to close off the evening.

The next day Angelo had arranged to meet up with a friend of his who was now living in Seoul.  We decided to do a hike just outside of the city and when we arrived at the subway stop nearby the mountain and you could immediately tell it was a hiking area.

There was an outdoors store in the train station and everyone coming off the train had the same uniform on.  Hiking backpack, tight hiking pants and at least 3 different colors represented.  Many people had hiking poles and many of them had a lot of hiking gadgets.

 

It was pretty obvious that Koreans loved to hike and they liked to look the part as well.  We finished the hike, grabbed some food and then headed back to the hotel for a bit of a rest.

After a short rest and work period, we decided to meet up with Carson again for Korean BBQ.  After some delicious food we went for a wander and happened across a street that offered many bars with craft beer.

I didn’t have too much, but it was cool to check out their selection and browse what they were proud to serve.

 

We adventure walked some more did a fun little photo shoot in the streets of Seoul.

The next day Angelo had to do some work so he took off on the bullet train to another part of Korea and i jumped on a bus to Sokcho, which was my next destination due East of Seoul!