I went to Seoul this weekend for two reasons: 1) World Wide Knit in Public Day (and I’ll put that section on my knitting blog for those interested) and 2) to visit my Korean friends, who I’ll call Y and J.
I had never been to Seoul before or used the bus station that I needed to use, so I asked my co-teacher. She was very helpful with times and other information, but the map didn’t help. I got to Shinsegae, which is near the terminal, but couldn’t get to the actual terminal. I saw a small building that said information and a police sign, so I poked my head in and asked for help. They were very nice, told me that I needed to cross the street and head in a certain direction, so I said thank you and went, noticing that I’d have to walk a little ways before I could cross the street.
At the crosswalk, I saw a police car approach. He did a u-turn at the intersection (!), then the passenger side window was rolled down and he beckoned for me to come. I got into the back seat of the car, a little nervously, and asked “Oh, you’ll drive me there? Thank you”. It’s a good thing they did, because the drive took a few minutes, I would have missed my bus. I got there just in time to get my ticket, find and use the bathroom (the women’s one was outside for some reason) and get on the bus. I didn’t understand at first that there was assigned seating, so I didn’t get why the bus driver was telling me to go to the back.
It wasn’t a bad ride. It took about 4.5 hours, though I was a little short for the seat. I had to sort of slouch and sit forward to get my feet to touch the ground, and it was a little uncomfortable. For a country where most people are close to my height, the seats really felt like they were made for, well, Americans (I’m talking height, not width). The back ones, anyway. I knit and listened to podcasts.
A knitter, M, met me at the station. There was some confusion there too, as there is more than 1 Dunkin Donuts, but we eventually figured out that we were waiting at opposite ends of the terminal (yay for cell phones) and made our way over to the subway station. One subway ride and shuttlebus later, we were at the Seoul Arts Center.
From here, I’ll post this part on my knitting blog.
Y came to meet me at 5, so after saying goodbye to the knitters, we made our way back to the entrance and saw that there was a performance going on. Lots of scantilly clad women dancing, mostly, but it was interesting. It was very crowded, so I didn’t take any pictures of that, but we watched while we waiting for J to join us.
Soon the three of us left and started looking for a restaurant. We chose a sit-on-the-floor style restaurant that was very busy, though I was skeptical of it at first because it looked dirty. It was actually clean, they had decorated the walls with paper to make it look old-fashioned, and there was a wooden screen separating the restaurant from the kitchen. I had some delicious yachae dooboo bipimbap (vegetable tofu bipimbap), there were lots of delicious sides, too.
After that, we made a quick stop at Y’s place so I could drop off my things, then we walked around the University campus that Y and J attend. It was very crowded in the nearby shopping center. Most of the stores/markets are much smaller than Canadian stores, so there can be a huge variety in a small place. There were, of course, a lot more foreigners there, and it felt strange (not in a bad way) to me after being in Gyeongsangnam-do for so long where we’re much more of a minority. We found a small restaurant where we shared some yummy green tea sherbert and pancakes. We also walked by the Han river, but I didn’t have my camera at that point.
The next day, Y and I woke up at around 8, had some toast and tomatoes for breakfast (the tomatoes are fantastic here), and headed out for Insadong. I didn’t really buy all that much, most of my money went to food. We watched some young men (they might have been teenagers still) make Dragon’s Whiskers (cornstarch and honey, with nuts on the inside) which taste amazing. They start with a hard ball of honey, then as they work with it it gets warm and malleable. It’s passed through cornstarch constantly as rings are made and folded, creating strings, “dragon’s whiskers”. At the end, you get something that looks like a coccoon.
We found J, walked around some more and went up a winding outdoor mall/building, which we spent some time exploring.
We looked for a certain place for lunch but couldn’t find it, so settled for a rice place. I had hot bipimbap. (Yes, I do end up with bipimbap or yachae kimbap a lot). I’m still working on my spicy food tolerance.
(see next post for the rest)
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