I have been waiting all day to blog about my very first day in Seoul. Its only day 1 and yet, I feel I have gained so much insight already. The day started with breakfast provided by our hostel. Three Korean guys work part time here and prepared a western style breakfast for us, nothing extravagant, but enough to last us through to our next meal. We were able to meet people from all different walks of their life at our hostel; from having worked ten years, got sick of her job and having decided to teach English in Seoul for a year, to newly graduated and hopping from country to country in Asia, to being an exchange student for a year and now enjoying his break before the next term starts again. It was neat to exchange backgrounds and get to meet people from all over the world: Germany (please meet a German, they have a beautiful accent!), France, Singapore, and lots of Australians. Staying in a hostel has been rather enjoyable too for the price you pay. Having your own room, WiFi, a kitchen with utensils and appliances, and a shared washroom. The last part might just be what bothers me a tad as about 10-15 of us all share the same bathroom, female and male. Its not a big problem, but I prefer to have a bathroom not shared by so many (good thing I chose a dorm with a bathroom over a fridge).
We headed out earlier to meet fay mah so that we would have more than enough time to get to Myeongdong in case we got lost or got into any trouble along the way. Luckily, we arrived earlier than we thought and took a stroll along the street stalls and shops on the street. We stumbled upon a beauty product shop that was closing out and I got myself a green tea hand cream and a aloe face scrub for $1Cad each, along with 10 Pomegranate face masks for $3Cad. Ann and I also found a stall that sold adapters for $1Cad too, what a great start!
infront of Sinsegae Mall
near Seoul Post Office
a cool building nearby
structure infront of Seoul Post Office
Having no cellular device on me has made me feel disconnected from my means of communicating to others. Despite having set a meeting place and time, I realize I had no clue what fay mah looked like. When 1pm came, we saw no sight of an ajumma (middle age women) that was short and chubby according to my somewhat logical assumption. I decided to use the payphone and after multiple trial and error and having the phone eat 500won (50cents), I called Jieun to get fay mah's number. Finally, I got through to fay mah and she was actually standing not too far from us, she just didn't know what we looked like but did assume that girl constantly dialing the payphone could've been me, and it was. Anyhow, she was far from my assumption, she wasn't that 'fay', and she was actually very tall! I felt short compared to her, in fact many Koreans are fairly tall here, lucky them. Well, we exchanged money, but couldn't open a bank account as it was Sunday. Surprisingly, Korea is probably one of the few places in Asia with a quieter Sunday as majority of the population take off the day to go to church and even close their businesses on this day.We went to three phone companies to get a phone + plan, but had no luck as there were limited choices for foreigners and you had to buy a new phone in order to get a phone plan. As the ones offered to us were rather expensive for someone staying Korea for only four months ish, we held it off and decided to sleep on it before digging out our wallets. Before fay mah had to head back to the airport with her tour (she was actually on her break when she was with us), she treated us to a delicious 짜장면 (Jajangmyeon-wheat noodles with a black soybean paste sauce) and "siu long bao" at a authentic Chinese restaurant.
On our own, we window shopped and browse a bit around Myeondong as this area is predominantly shopping. It got too cold for us and we decided to buy a thick knitted scarf from one of the street stalls to keep us warm. I have another one to add to my growing collection now hehe, but it could've been cheaper, oh well we were freezing and had no time to compare prices! As we walked around the block, there was a street full of cosmetics shops and sale associates infront of them would wave samples in your face and say 'free'. Yes, it is free, yes you can take it, but really... there is a catch so DON'T TAKE IT. They try to get your attention by saying free and then persuade you to go in and just 'look' while you have that free sample in your hand, and they don't stop until you go in, so in the end I said no, it's ok in Korean and gave back the samples in order to get away from them. Culture lesson number one. Soon later we were on our way to city hall to do some sight seeing, but headed back to the train station shortly after as we were brutally cold and tired from being out so long.
We chilled in our hostel for a bit, caught up on blogging, did our laundry, which is still a
ir drying in our room as there is no dryer. For dinner, we headed out around Sinchon area and realized the reason why it took so long for us to decide was due to the amount of selections available. In the end we headed into a 손두부찌개 (tofu stew) place and shared a seafood one. Korean restaurants usually give you free side dishes with your meal (bottomless too) and this place included anchovies, a dressing dish, seaweed, broccoli & drizzled in this spicy sauce, and black beans.
Here comes culture lesson numero two, quite a funny story HAHA. When the waitress brought us our side dishes, she left a tall silver tea pot with it. Ann wanted me to ask for teacups as I knew more Korean, so when the waitress came to take our order, I attempted at asking for two cups in Korea but stumbled. She looked at me oddly and I thought I probably butchered it quite terribly and so I tried English, and then she looked quite shock and pointed at the water, and then crossed her arms, meaning... it wasn't tea inside and we found out it was hot water for our rice or something as she pointed to the rice on the menu. When our order came, there was our stone pot of seafood tofu stew and a stone pot of rice as well. We scooped rice into our bowls and then realized we were suppose to put the hot water in, and so we did as we assumed that was what the waitress had meant. As soon as we poured the hot water in, we had a lightbulb moment and realized the hot water was for the st
ew, not for the rice, why would you water down your rice right? We felt so embarrassed and when the waitress came I asked her to give me one more pot of rice. We couldn't help laughing and the waitress was keeping from laughing as well. She called an ajumma over, who I assumed was the owner and she was smiling kindly at us and gave us another bowl of rice. Funny thing is, when the waitress came to scoop rice for us, she poured that teapot of hot water into the stone pot and we were even more confused... so were we right to poor the hot water into the rice or not? Boy did we feel stupid, the water was to get the rice from sticking to the stone pot so it be easier to wash, well we still didn't know if that was an accurate assumption, but it was a fun meal, and for less than $3.5Cad each, we couldn't complain.
All in all, I realized I wasn't as afraid as I thought to use the knowledge of Korean I had throughout the day. Sometimes it took a few minutes before I processed what people were saying to us or what I should be saying to them, but other times it just came, so once again, I'm thankful for my Korean friend who tutored me before I left for my travels.
Until tomorrow friends!
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So Spaniards, or Catalan culture is quite unique from the rest of Europe. Not only are siestas renown (a break/resting period in the afternoon usually from 1-4pm), meal times are thus later in the day and night life is vibrant. Barcelona was also one of the more multicultural cities we've been to as we saw a bigger populations of minority groups and various Asian restaurants in the downtown core making us believe that the city is rather racially diverse as compared to Italy and Greece. As Spain is one of the more Southern countries of Europe, there are also lots of Muslims and Africans that move here from Africa as its relatively close on the map.
What ultimately threw us off was surprisingly the weather. We had thought Spain would be the hottest destination for us with radiating sunlight and beaming hot weather, but the time we were there was quite cool and we had just missed the heat wave the week prior. Also, having had the opportunity to drive in Barcelona, I can honestly say that roads are small, parking is tight despite the fact that everyone is able to reverse and parallel park like a wish come true, and Spaniards LOVE LOVE LOVE RIGHT TURNS?! They rather have a traffic circle than an intersection. I never thought I say this, but highway driving is so much easier than driving in town, at least for Barcelona.
Our first full day led us to explore downtown and kicked off the day at Il Cortes Ingles, a franchise department store throughout Spain. The one right downtown at the Catalunya metro station has a rooftop cafeteria style eatery (think Ikea) and restaurant (lunch opens at 1pm), that oversees the skyline and metropolitan area of Barcelona. We ate at the cafeteria since we didn't want to wait for post-siesta lunch hour to start at the restaurant and enjoyed it a lot. Though the food is cooked already, portions are huge and they warm it up for you upon ordering. Prices are also very reasonable for a view like this. I had stuff squid for 10 Euros! It was amazing!
Afterwards, we wandered downtown enough to notice that Zara and its HQ of Inditex chain stores are almost on every block. I was overjoyed to discover Lefties, a discounted line under the Inditex group. Oh and for all you European travellers, the prices of clothing at Zara in Spain is cheaper than the rest of Europe since the brand started and manufactures there. I should've waited instead of having had made a purchase back in Italy, but oh well.. lesson learnt.
That night, we were able to catch the famous Flamenco Show at the Palau de la Musica Catalana. Funny story, we were looking at postcards and one with the interior of this gorgeous theatre stopped us to question what building it was and what purpose it served. To our luck, it happened to be right across from us and the Flamenco show schedule just happened to fall on that night! It was meant to be and for our 35 Euros upper deck seats, it was such a "must see" cultural experience. Prior to this eventful evening, we also had the most amazing tapas (small savoury dishes typically served at dinner) ever nearby at a place called Taller De Tapas. I actually wish we ate more tapas because these savoury dishes in Spain are amazing!!
So Spaniards, or Catalan culture is quite unique from the rest of Europe. Not only are siestas renown (a break/resting period in the afternoon usually from 1-4pm), meal times are thus later in the day and night life is vibrant. Barcelona was also one of the more multicultural cities we've been to as we saw a bigger populations of minority groups and various Asian restaurants in the downtown core making us believe that the city is rather racially diverse as compared to Italy and Greece. As Spain is one of the more Southern countries of Europe, there are also lots of Muslims and Africans that move here from Africa as its relatively close on the map.
Our first full day led us to explore downtown and kicked off the day at Il Cortes Ingles, a franchise department store throughout Spain. The one right downtown at the Catalunya metro station has a rooftop cafeteria style eatery (think Ikea) and restaurant (lunch opens at 1pm), that oversees the skyline and metropolitan area of Barcelona. We ate at the cafeteria since we didn't want to wait for post-siesta lunch hour to start at the restaurant and enjoyed it a lot. Though the food is cooked already, portions are huge and they warm it up for you upon ordering. Prices are also very reasonable for a view like this. I had stuff squid for 10 Euros! It was amazing!
That night, we were able to catch the famous Flamenco Show at the Palau de la Musica Catalana. Funny story, we were looking at postcards and one with the interior of this gorgeous theatre stopped us to question what building it was and what purpose it served. To our luck, it happened to be right across from us and the Flamenco show schedule just happened to fall on that night! It was meant to be and for our 35 Euros upper deck seats, it was such a "must see" cultural experience. Prior to this eventful evening, we also had the most amazing tapas (small savoury dishes typically served at dinner) ever nearby at a place called Taller De Tapas. I actually wish we ate more tapas because these savoury dishes in Spain are amazing!!
