Weekend in Seoul

I spent the last weekend in the capital of Korea, Seoul. It is about 2 and a half hours north of my city by express bus. Riding a bus is incredibly cheap costing only 10,000 won ($11) one-way. We decided to stay in a part of town that has a large foreigner population (a welcome break from 2 months of essentially no foreigners). The area was called Itaewon. The reason it has so many foreigners is due to the close proximity of the US army base which houses approximately 10,000 soldiers and their families. A bonus to staying in the foreigner area is being able to enjoy a Western-style breakfast (eggs, bacon), which was expensive but well worth it.

The first night we stayed in the dive of all dive's in the world of hotel rooms. I think each room cost 30,000 won. In the spirit of keeping this blog for general audiences I will forego the details, you will just have to take my word for it. Although I will try to post a picture of it. We were able to see a live band for the first time since arriving in Korea at this bar called Woodstock on Friday night. The band rocked pretty good playing some AC/DC, Bryan Adams, etc. On Saturday, the first thing we did was change hotel rooms. After that, we did the Seoul city bus tour, which took us to some interesting sights while seeing a lot of the city out of the bus windows on the way. Stops included the North Seoul Tower (good view of the city), Deoksugung Palace, the Yongsang electronics market (this place is unimaginably huge and has floors dedicated to such things as hard drives or speakers).

At night we returned to Itaewon and ate some foreign food (aka Western style). I had a cheeseburger and fries and it was delicious! Afterward we headed to a Middle Eastern restaurant to meet with some people. I was forced to abstain from the food since I had just eaten, but it looked good. I would like to try it when I go back. The name of the place was Ali Baba's. I did participate in the post-meal shee-sa (not sure if I spelt that right) smoking. It is this weird gummy tobacco heated by charcoil that is filtered by this very large bong. It was a really cool thing to try. After that restaurant it was off to the Rocky Mountain Tavern, a Canadian bar! That place was hopping. I ran into these nice people from Daegu (a city close to Jeonju), who had been in Jeonju one night and ended up going out with me and some friends. Quite a coincidence.

Nothing ends a night like a visit to a norebong (kareoke room). So we stopped at the 7/11 to pick up some beers and off to our private kareoke room we went. The time can really fly by in those places as we busted out some of our North American favourites. The next morning we did some street vendor shopping. There were endless amounts of designer rip offs, sunglasses, clothes, purses, etc. All in all a great weekend, and it wasn't too expensive despite two nights in a hotel room. I caught a little bit of a cold with the lack of sleep. Today a kid sneezed on me too... that probably didn't help. Oh well... now for pictures



This is Fraser and Emily singing in the kareoke song. No doubt belting out a classic.

This is a giant pond at Deoksugung Palace. This place is in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world, so it was pretty cool to be so isolated.

This is me hitting the shee-saa at the Middle Eastern Restaurant. The tobacco had a nice apple flavour to it.

Again at Deoksugung Palace. These people stood in the same spot all day. I also noticed that they glued their beards on.

A typical Seoul subway. Notice the TVs about half way down the car. They stick TVs wherever there is free space in this country.

More pictures coming. I can only upload so many at a time. I will definately need to get back to Seoul. It is very big and there is much more to explore. Maybe next month!