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Hey, this is Chris here, giving this blog thing a try. I
don’t plan on this being a long one, but who knows.
Anyway, we got back from Seoul today, where we were for 4
days. Overall, I was impressed with the city. Very large (something like 20+
million when you get to the surrounding areas involved) but it was manageable
and not too crazy. Of course, we went during the traditional summer slowdown,
when I think most of the city gets a couple days off and heads to the
beaches. Actually, we were thinking about heading to the beaches ourselves,
but then heard they would be packed with people from the city, so we figured to
head the other way. All in all, it worked out well.
BTW, pictures are posted at the link above. I still
haven’t figured out how to do this whole posting pictures on the blog site
itself. I suppose I should read some explanation, but this is much simpler
for me. Maybe next time.
Getting there, we took the KTX, which is the high-speed
rail line. It’s very smooth and nice and hits a top speed of 300 kph
(186mph) Looking out the window, it does look like someone hit the 2x button
on the VCR. Anyway, very nice, fairly cheap (about $15 one way) and very
convenient. After all, the station takes you straight from downtown to
downtown, which is nice to get around from there. I kinda wonder why high
speed rail hasn’t caught on in the US. Perhaps because the distances between
the cities are too far to justify the infrastructure. But wouldn’t it be nice
to have a train you could take from Detroit to Chicago or Toronto that took a
little over an hour, cost around $20 and get you into downtown? You can’t get
there faster by air and you can’t beat the cost regardless.
Getting back on subject though, we basically traveled all
over the city for the four days. Places we saw:
-Two palaces: Amazing, amazing stuff. Huge and
very impressive. Also impressive in that they both seemed to have been
destroyed several times, and rebuilt each time. When the Japanese occupied
Korea, they tore down half the main palace and built a great big administration
center on it. When the Koreans reclaimed their country, they tore down the
admin building and built their ancient palace right back again. The Koreans
are nothing if not perseverant.
-the Korea Historical Museum, the National Folk Museum:
Both very cool for showing a lot of history in a very interesting way.
-the Seoul Tower via the cable car: Very nice
views that showcase the city. It goes forever and that’s in every
direction. There’s another folk museum in the basement which was free to
foreigners. We gave it a look and it was… well strange. Imagine the garage
of someone who’s been around the world about 40 times and you have an idea of
this museum was about. In fact, picture they are still on another trip and
haven’t had a chance to sort anything and you have a slightly better idea.
Stuff from everywhere stacked up with a little name card, without any regard to
theme, organization, or category. It was certainly the strangest museum I’ve
been in a long time.
-Markets, Markets, and Markets – We were in several
of the major open-air markets. Stuff everywhere. People everywhere. Most
anything you could hope to buy. Clothing, pottery, luggage, leather products,
toys going very cheap. Other things, mostly average prices, I would say. But
interesting nonetheless.
-Malls: We did do a quick swing through two malls,
mainly to find out what was available and find a place to eat. Needless to
say, they are gi-mungous. One has a huge aquarium built in, while the other
has both an indoor and an outdoor amusement park attached as well as a skating
rink, bowling alley and shooting range. Yes, shooting range. Actually, I
could see that as a big draw in the US as well. Can you imagine the popularity
of a shooting range at the mall, especially around Christmastime? Certainly a
lot of pent-up frustrations getting released after fighting your way to get the
latest Tiny-Beenie-Tickle-me-Whatever. I’m just jealous the Koreans thought of it
first.
-Shows: We did catch a cool show called Cookin’,
which was very muck a kitchen version of Stomp. Personally, I liked Stomp
better, but it was amusing and a nice cool place to be for a while, which was
very important.
-Korean War Memorial: Another good museum,
showcasing the evolution of warfare and then of course a very large layout of
the Korean War in general. Interesting stuff, very well presented.
Anyway, overall, a very fun city. I was expecting it to
be more expensive as well, but really it wasn’t too bad. The hotel room was
reasonable; the subway system was cheap as were all the attractions. About
the only place we got zinged was the food and that was only because we were
eating a lot of Western places. We figured Seoul was the place to stock up
again on some non-Korean stuff, so we ate Western most every meal.
That and the fact we were constantly buying liquids because
it was crazy hot the whole time. This whole week was 95 degrees F and
humid, plus the fact we were walking something like 10+ hours a day, we were
constantly drinking whatever we could find cold. I could understand why
everyone hits the beach this time of year.
I’m glad we went, but after that much walking, I’m glad to
be back. Tomorrow’s adventure: pickup up our alien cards and trying to open
a bank account. Hopefully they won’t arrest us for being international money
launderers. Actually, I’m just hoping someone at the bank speaks English or
the whole thing will be opsieo. (not available)