After a bit of a lazy morning I caught the 12:30 bus back to Seoul. Traffic was much heavier than when I came, and it took around 3.5 hours to get back. I had booked a room at the same hostel as I stayed in before, because I find knowing exactly how to get to your accomodations and not having to drag bags around searching is a huge advantage. The dorms were all booked so I'm staying in a single private room tonight. It's more expensive, but still very reasonable (about $25) and probably works out better since I won't have to disturb anybody else getting up early in the morning to catch my flight.
Some of the people I hung around earlier in the week were still around, so I went out for dinner with them and a few new guests. We got a huge dish of spicy chicken, potatoes, glass noodles, garlic and a few other vegetables, and finished things off with waffles and icecream. I wish I'd had a bit more time in South Korea, but I enjoyed the time I did have and met some more great people.
Showing posts with label South Korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Korea. Show all posts
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Days 166-167: Sokcho and Seoraksan National Park
I took the bus yesterday from Seoul to Sokcho, which is still in the north part of the country but on the opposite coast. Sokcho was part of North Korea until the border changed at the end of the Korean war, and supposedly one of the attractions to the city is its proximity to the DMZ and on the bus ride over and in town there are definitely a lot of young military men. The biggest reason for tourists to come to the city, however, is as a base to visit Seoraksan National Park which is famous for its mountains and rock formations. I'm staying in a little hostel basically in the woods between the park and city, but the bus back and forth goes by every half hour or so, and costs $1, so it's pretty convenient to get to either location. Since Sokcho is a fairly small place and a bit out of the way, barely anybody speaks any english here. Communicating with the hostel staff and at restaurants has presented some issues, but in the end you just do the best you can and make do.
Today was to be my one full day in the area, and I planned to hike in the park for much of the day then go check out town in the afternoon. Unfortunately it was overcast and often raining, but I took the bus to the park anyway and hit the trails. The rain was more of a drizzle, and while the mist and clouds looked nice from below, once I started climbing there was almost no visibility.
My main objective was to climb a rock known as Ulsanbawi. It's not the biggest thing around, but it's a solid hike and one of the most beautiful views around. Here is what it looks like from the top on a clear day (not my picture):
...and here's what it looked like for me:
Ah well, you can't win them all. It did clear up later in the afternoon, but by then it would have gotten dark before I could get back again. If it's looking clear in the morning I might try again before taking my bus back to Seoul (the round trip hiking to the top and back is only about 3 hours for me). After finishing my hiking I went into town to explore. It has a big harbor, a beach and a busy fish market, but in general there isn't anything terribly exceptional about it.
Tomrrow it's back to Seoul for my last day in South Korea, and then on to Hong Kong.
Today was to be my one full day in the area, and I planned to hike in the park for much of the day then go check out town in the afternoon. Unfortunately it was overcast and often raining, but I took the bus to the park anyway and hit the trails. The rain was more of a drizzle, and while the mist and clouds looked nice from below, once I started climbing there was almost no visibility.
My main objective was to climb a rock known as Ulsanbawi. It's not the biggest thing around, but it's a solid hike and one of the most beautiful views around. Here is what it looks like from the top on a clear day (not my picture):
...and here's what it looked like for me:
Ah well, you can't win them all. It did clear up later in the afternoon, but by then it would have gotten dark before I could get back again. If it's looking clear in the morning I might try again before taking my bus back to Seoul (the round trip hiking to the top and back is only about 3 hours for me). After finishing my hiking I went into town to explore. It has a big harbor, a beach and a busy fish market, but in general there isn't anything terribly exceptional about it.
Tomrrow it's back to Seoul for my last day in South Korea, and then on to Hong Kong.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Day 165: Traditional Korea
It was another nice day out, and I headed out with just a few things left on my list of things I wanted to see. I started off walking to Gyeonbokgung Palace, which is the most famous of the palaces in the city, but one I missed earlier because the rain forced my day shorter than I had planned. Before going to the palace I stopped at the Traditional Folk Village right next to it.
The Folk Village has two sections, an open-air museum of statues and reconstructions of traditional buildings, and an indoors museum covering history and culture in Korea. Since early Asian culture and tradition (and history) isn't something I know a lot about, I thought it would be a good place to get a bit of a foundation - especially since it's free. The outdoors section had some stone figurines and tablets, but the most interesting part was the buildings. In addition to different types of traditional buildings there was also a reconstructed street depicting buildings of about 50 years ago, including a comicbook store which I thought was a bit funny.
Indoors there was quite a bit to see, and thankfully all translated. Following all the different empires, wars and alliances of earlier history was a bit tough, but I found the sections on traditional life, describing marriages, farm planting and harvesting, adaptation to the seasons, building techniques, ceremonies and festivals all very interesting.
With that all done, it was time to move on to the palace. There were many different structures and complexes within the walls - many of which are only reconstructions of the originals, but still very pretty. My favourite was a shrine in the center of a pond with the mountains in the background.
I also caught the changing of the palace guards. I'm assuming it's just for show, but many aspects are similar to the other guard changing ceremonies I've seen - just a lot fancier.
I didn't a lot more walking around the city center and spent some more time around Hongik since I liked that area so much. I found a small park in the area with a busker on a keyboard working his way through Oasis, Radiohead and Coldplay songs. He was surprisingly good, and I sat under a tree nearby and thought about one of the many programming problems I think about in my moments of idleness (this time it was about how to program digital civilizations with the ability to develop and evolve culture, and all the complexity culture entails).
I then grabbed the subway back towards city hall to find the Chongdong Theater. A day earlier I had reserved a ticket for a performance called Miso, which is an original musical with traditional Korean music and dance. Somebody else in the hostel recommended it highly, and I thought it would be something different and interesting. It was a pretty small theater so everybody had a great view, and it was a really nice show. It was all just instrumental and dance, but followed a love story about a couple falling in love, being separated by a jealous official and eventually being reunited and getting married. As is often the case, the real highlight of the performance for me wasn't the lovers, but their two personal servants / friends who had a much more energetic role.
A busy day, but a good way to spend my last day in Seoul before heading west into the mountains.
The Folk Village has two sections, an open-air museum of statues and reconstructions of traditional buildings, and an indoors museum covering history and culture in Korea. Since early Asian culture and tradition (and history) isn't something I know a lot about, I thought it would be a good place to get a bit of a foundation - especially since it's free. The outdoors section had some stone figurines and tablets, but the most interesting part was the buildings. In addition to different types of traditional buildings there was also a reconstructed street depicting buildings of about 50 years ago, including a comicbook store which I thought was a bit funny.
Indoors there was quite a bit to see, and thankfully all translated. Following all the different empires, wars and alliances of earlier history was a bit tough, but I found the sections on traditional life, describing marriages, farm planting and harvesting, adaptation to the seasons, building techniques, ceremonies and festivals all very interesting.
With that all done, it was time to move on to the palace. There were many different structures and complexes within the walls - many of which are only reconstructions of the originals, but still very pretty. My favourite was a shrine in the center of a pond with the mountains in the background.
I also caught the changing of the palace guards. I'm assuming it's just for show, but many aspects are similar to the other guard changing ceremonies I've seen - just a lot fancier.
I didn't a lot more walking around the city center and spent some more time around Hongik since I liked that area so much. I found a small park in the area with a busker on a keyboard working his way through Oasis, Radiohead and Coldplay songs. He was surprisingly good, and I sat under a tree nearby and thought about one of the many programming problems I think about in my moments of idleness (this time it was about how to program digital civilizations with the ability to develop and evolve culture, and all the complexity culture entails).
I then grabbed the subway back towards city hall to find the Chongdong Theater. A day earlier I had reserved a ticket for a performance called Miso, which is an original musical with traditional Korean music and dance. Somebody else in the hostel recommended it highly, and I thought it would be something different and interesting. It was a pretty small theater so everybody had a great view, and it was a really nice show. It was all just instrumental and dance, but followed a love story about a couple falling in love, being separated by a jealous official and eventually being reunited and getting married. As is often the case, the real highlight of the performance for me wasn't the lovers, but their two personal servants / friends who had a much more energetic role.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Day 164: Getting Around
I've fallen behind on posts a few days. It seems that whenever I sit down to use my computer I get drawn into a conversation or invited out to do something. I'm not complaining, since I like doing those things, but it means I haven't had the chance to write much. Since each day has been fairly eventful I don't want to group them together, so I'll see how much I can get to now.
Wednesday, despite the weather reports, turned out to be a lovely day. This was good, because one of the departing people in the hostel stole my umbrella less than a day after I bought it. While it was sunny I wanted to see as much of the city as possible. I began by walking to some of the nearby markets and taking a look around.
The aisle between the shop vendors was a line of stalls with people cooking and serving a variety of food. Since it was all very cheap I tried a few of the safer-looking finger food, but stayed away from things like the pig heads.
Next I took the subway to Gangnam station to explore the district and try to figure out what exactly Gangnam style is. I walked from the station east until the Trade Tower and COEX shopping mall, with a few detours along the way. This is the part of the city (at least one of them) with big shiny office towers and department stores. When you wander down the side streets things are less built up, but on the main roads things are very modern urban looking.
Then it was back onto the subway to explore the area around Hongik University. I liked this area a lot, and you could definitely see the university's influence on the area. There are a lot of bars and cheap, diverse restaurants and street food vendors and a lot of shops just targetting a younger crowd.
I explored the side streets in the area for awhile then began walking east towards Seoul Station. About halfway there I came across a tiny park of old men playing baduk (the Korean name for go) so I stopped for a break to watch them play some.
From Seoul Station I took the subway back to the district I'm staying in and met up with somebody else in my hostel for a dinner of Korean dishes we didn't know the names of, and just chose by picture.
After a few days of hanging out in Seoul, I have a few comments on the city (or possibly country). You can see that I used the subway a lot, which is rare for me. There are two main reasons I've been using it so much in Seoul. First, it's very cheap and organized. The cars can get pretty crowded at times, but it costs about $1-$1.50 to get anywhere in the city that I'd be interested in going. The other reason I take the subway is that I find Seoul very unfriendly to pedestrians. Many places have small sidewalks, or none at all; the crosswalks at intersections take forever, and worst, apparently motorcycles can (and do) use sidewalks just as freely as they use the roads. It's not terribly fun to constantly be dodging motorcycles weaving through pedestrians and trees to avoid traffic, and it's a nearly constant occurence. I also find there's more of a western/American influence than in Japan, which surprised me a little. They have the big 4 fast food chains that are everywhere (McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, KFC), but I've also seen Taco Bell, Quiznos, Dunkin Donuts (everywhere), and others. Speaking of Dunkin Donuts, I don't think I've been to any other country with quite the saturation of coffee shops as Seoul has. They really seem to love coffee.
Wednesday, despite the weather reports, turned out to be a lovely day. This was good, because one of the departing people in the hostel stole my umbrella less than a day after I bought it. While it was sunny I wanted to see as much of the city as possible. I began by walking to some of the nearby markets and taking a look around.
The aisle between the shop vendors was a line of stalls with people cooking and serving a variety of food. Since it was all very cheap I tried a few of the safer-looking finger food, but stayed away from things like the pig heads.
Next I took the subway to Gangnam station to explore the district and try to figure out what exactly Gangnam style is. I walked from the station east until the Trade Tower and COEX shopping mall, with a few detours along the way. This is the part of the city (at least one of them) with big shiny office towers and department stores. When you wander down the side streets things are less built up, but on the main roads things are very modern urban looking.
Then it was back onto the subway to explore the area around Hongik University. I liked this area a lot, and you could definitely see the university's influence on the area. There are a lot of bars and cheap, diverse restaurants and street food vendors and a lot of shops just targetting a younger crowd.
I explored the side streets in the area for awhile then began walking east towards Seoul Station. About halfway there I came across a tiny park of old men playing baduk (the Korean name for go) so I stopped for a break to watch them play some.
From Seoul Station I took the subway back to the district I'm staying in and met up with somebody else in my hostel for a dinner of Korean dishes we didn't know the names of, and just chose by picture.
After a few days of hanging out in Seoul, I have a few comments on the city (or possibly country). You can see that I used the subway a lot, which is rare for me. There are two main reasons I've been using it so much in Seoul. First, it's very cheap and organized. The cars can get pretty crowded at times, but it costs about $1-$1.50 to get anywhere in the city that I'd be interested in going. The other reason I take the subway is that I find Seoul very unfriendly to pedestrians. Many places have small sidewalks, or none at all; the crosswalks at intersections take forever, and worst, apparently motorcycles can (and do) use sidewalks just as freely as they use the roads. It's not terribly fun to constantly be dodging motorcycles weaving through pedestrians and trees to avoid traffic, and it's a nearly constant occurence. I also find there's more of a western/American influence than in Japan, which surprised me a little. They have the big 4 fast food chains that are everywhere (McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, KFC), but I've also seen Taco Bell, Quiznos, Dunkin Donuts (everywhere), and others. Speaking of Dunkin Donuts, I don't think I've been to any other country with quite the saturation of coffee shops as Seoul has. They really seem to love coffee.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Day 163: Monsoon
Monsoon season in Korea is supposed sometime in August, but it's still close enough to then that the weather doesn't really seem to care. I delayed heading out in the morning a bit to wait for the rain to stop, but it quickly started up again and only got worse as the day progressed. Since I only have a short time in Seoul I can't wait out the rain, so I finally gave in and bought an umbrella and spent the day visiting some of the nearby palace complexes.
The first one I went to was Changgyeonggung Palace. The grounds were a mix of colourful traditional buildings and shrines as well as lots of ponds and trees along the sides.
The little monument at the end there deserves special mention out of weirdness. It is called a taesil, and it's where the royal family stored the placenta and umbilical cords of their children. The little stone to the side with writing on it, according to the description plaque, is inscribed with "the story of the placenta", whatever that means.
Afterwards I got some lunch and went to the next palace, Changdeokgung Palace. The names look similar, but there's a different syllable in the middle there. The rain was really coming down hard by this point, and even with an umbrella I was getting pretty wet. The palace consisted of two sections, one containing the administrative and main palace buildings and the other containing the "secret garden" which is a large wooded area of ponds and shrines that was private for the royal family. I got there in time to do english tours of both areas, which ended up being almost 3 hours in total.
The tour concluded with a 750 year old cypress tree on the grounds, but the pounding rain made taking a decent picture difficult.
My shoes and pants were pretty soaked through by this point, and since it was late enough in the day that things were starting to close anyway I decided to head back to the hostel and call it a day. I still have a lot on my list to get through, and it's supposed to be raining again tomorrow, so we'll see how much I can accomplish.
The first one I went to was Changgyeonggung Palace. The grounds were a mix of colourful traditional buildings and shrines as well as lots of ponds and trees along the sides.
The little monument at the end there deserves special mention out of weirdness. It is called a taesil, and it's where the royal family stored the placenta and umbilical cords of their children. The little stone to the side with writing on it, according to the description plaque, is inscribed with "the story of the placenta", whatever that means.
Afterwards I got some lunch and went to the next palace, Changdeokgung Palace. The names look similar, but there's a different syllable in the middle there. The rain was really coming down hard by this point, and even with an umbrella I was getting pretty wet. The palace consisted of two sections, one containing the administrative and main palace buildings and the other containing the "secret garden" which is a large wooded area of ponds and shrines that was private for the royal family. I got there in time to do english tours of both areas, which ended up being almost 3 hours in total.
The tour concluded with a 750 year old cypress tree on the grounds, but the pounding rain made taking a decent picture difficult.
My shoes and pants were pretty soaked through by this point, and since it was late enough in the day that things were starting to close anyway I decided to head back to the hostel and call it a day. I still have a lot on my list to get through, and it's supposed to be raining again tomorrow, so we'll see how much I can accomplish.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Day 162: To Korea
I was a bit late getting out the door, but Japan's lovely public transit still got me through to the airport with plenty of spare time. My flight out was a bit interesting. I was on a double decker airplane, which I believe is a first for me. It was by far the most space and comfort I've ever had on a plane. Instead of seats you sat in a fully adjustable pod that you could electronically position however you wanted, including reclining it to a full bed. Since my flight was less than two hours I didn't try to sleep at all, but having the luxury of being unable to touch the seat in front of me was very nice. I landed in the smaller airport of Gimpo in Seoul, and in the time it took me to go through customs and reclaim my backpack I only saw 2 other white people.
Currency in South Korea has also been a bit strange. The exachange rate is about 1000 won = $1, which isn't that unusual, but until a couple of years ago the largest bill they had was 10,000 won ($10). They now have a 50,000 won, but it's still new and the infrastructure is still updating for it. Because of all this, when I took out cash from the bank machine it came in 35 10,000 won bills. The metro system is in many ways similar too Tokyo's, and for the most part very easy to get around in. I ignored the advice of the information desk guy in the airport and decided to get to my hostel by metro instead of by airport train. It took quite a bit longer and involved a few transfers, but it cost me less than 1/4 as much and was a good chance to figure things out a bit.
The hostel is in a university neighborhood, and there are lots of good, cheap restaurants around. The big specialty in the area is fried chicken and beer restaurants, which doesn't really strike me as terribly Korean, but there are plenty of more traditional things around too. I spent the afternoon wandering around the area, but didn't try visiting anything specific.
It was a very muggy, hazy day outside, and this morning it's raining out. Apparently two typhoons have just passed and it has rained a lot in the last two weeks, so it could be a very wet week for me.
Currency in South Korea has also been a bit strange. The exachange rate is about 1000 won = $1, which isn't that unusual, but until a couple of years ago the largest bill they had was 10,000 won ($10). They now have a 50,000 won, but it's still new and the infrastructure is still updating for it. Because of all this, when I took out cash from the bank machine it came in 35 10,000 won bills. The metro system is in many ways similar too Tokyo's, and for the most part very easy to get around in. I ignored the advice of the information desk guy in the airport and decided to get to my hostel by metro instead of by airport train. It took quite a bit longer and involved a few transfers, but it cost me less than 1/4 as much and was a good chance to figure things out a bit.
The hostel is in a university neighborhood, and there are lots of good, cheap restaurants around. The big specialty in the area is fried chicken and beer restaurants, which doesn't really strike me as terribly Korean, but there are plenty of more traditional things around too. I spent the afternoon wandering around the area, but didn't try visiting anything specific.
It was a very muggy, hazy day outside, and this morning it's raining out. Apparently two typhoons have just passed and it has rained a lot in the last two weeks, so it could be a very wet week for me.
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