Yesterday I returned from a 5 day trip in South Korea. I will only do one entry about it since this site is based on Japan. There are also photos of my Korea trip in the photo section.
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March 21
The first thing we experienced in Korea was complete unintelligibility as a cab driver was inviting us to drive us to our hostel (please read: hostel, not hotel.. explained later). South Koreans are very insisting and even if we don't understand and clearly show we don't understand, they continue speaking to us! That is much different from Japan where people generally don't approach strangers at all! Late at night taxi drivers are notoriously known to refuse foreigners... One of the best things is that many things are much cheaper here than in Japan... transportation, food and clothing. Many Japanese people come here to spend their Yen.
The second shock was our inability to read anything! The first restaurant we went to we were able to have some help from a generous person from our hostel, but we never sure what we actually ordered until we received it. Korean food was just like I had expected it, and even better: spicy, tasty and filling.
The first night we went to Dondaemon market where we were exposed to the first "flea market on the street" area and I impulsively purchased a t-shirt with the South Korean emblem on it as well as a patch with the same symbol and finally an "Astro Boy" belt. We ended the night by going to the movie theater (the first time since I am in Asia) and watched the "controversial" 300 movie. The movie was in English, subtitled in Korean. Nothing strange here apart from one snack I got with my popcorn and drink: dried squid peanut-butter shreds... Very tasty, but not for me...
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March 22
The highlight of today is going to a gigantic outdoors fleamarket that extended block after block. We probably would have never have time to see everything in one day. I went in a shopping frenzy again and ended up being a suite (pants and jacket) shirts and ties and the shoes that go with them. I took some pictures to try to show the enormity of the place and the amount of junk they have, but those pictures don't make justice to the feeling there was. I also felt that most of the customers were Japanese because the vendors said: Irasshaimase, which is a saying clerks always say in Japan to invite customers in. Some of them also said: yasukushimasukara... "because me make it cheap".
After my first whole day in Korea I can tell that Koreans are a loud bunch compared to Japanese they like to drink to and can be seen drunk in the streets every night (all ages, compared to Japan where generally older salary man are seen drunk on trains). Physically, the guys are generally taller and more built... I was actually pretty short compared to most Koreans. They seem to be much more accustomed to gaijins because they never stare at us or make remarks when they see us, and on the train, when we sit next to them, they don't move away or change seats. Also, they also don't have the reflex of thinking we don't know Korean because they first talk to us in Korean and continue talking to us in Korean even if we obviously show we don't understand. Most of all, they are very warm and strangers always say hello to us and randomly try to pick up a conversation with us either in English or Korean. Young school girls in groups learning English would always wave us hello and be really surprised when we would respond in one of the very few words we knew in Korean.
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March 23
The highlight of the day was certainly visiting the Demilitarized Zone. In our tour we visited an infiltration tunnel constructed by the North Koreans AFTER the cease-fire. Three other tunnels were discovered with one that had a capacity of 30,000 soldiers an hour. One tunnel was just 52 KM away from Seoul, and was discovered in 1990! This showed that Korea was really a separated country that was still at war today and the tension could be felt. It saddened me to hear stories of families who were separated and could only see each other for a few minutes every year, and also the fact that South Korea has a big military burden to ensure national security because of the North Korean threat. I do not have many photos of the DMZ because in most places pictures where forbidden and I tried to take one picture of North Korea that was erased by a South Korean soldier. My favorite moment of the DMZ tour was when I visited the Dorasan station, the last station of Seoul, 10 KM from the border of North Korea. This is a modern and grand station that is always empty. For now, the train passes there 3 times a day, but the South Koreans are proud of this station as it represents the future of Korea, a unified Korea. Seen in this light, this station is not the last station of Seoul, but the first station to go to North Korea. The picture of me with the sign indicating Seoul and Pyongyang in the background is a famous sign that was in the media with a South Korean soldier in front during the talks about the North Korea nuclear test.
Our tour ended in Itaewon, one of the entertainment districts of Seoul. We had lunch there and visited the shops on the streets. This place was crowded with foreigners and even seemed to have an Arab community. South Korea decided that globalization was inevitable and decided to move with it by embracing immigration, among others.
We continued our Korean War-themed day by visiting the War Museum that had an impressive memorial and displays of military vehicles and weapons that were used during the Korean war. One plane was donated by Canada and was used as a service plane.
The night ended up with us getting completely drunk in a small bar near our hostel and we had lots of fun speaking with Koreans and them teaching us Korean culture and especially how to drink like a Korean. One person we met in particular had to be escorted out by his friends by the end of the day. I did some silly things myself, I am still waiting for videos and photos from my friends.
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March 24
Today was a gray/rainy day and we did not do anything special. We strolled the streets of the financial district looking for a building we never found, we say the Seoul stock exchange and visited an underground wall that was so busy it was overwhelming for all of us. This is one of the most populated cities after all.
While searching for a particular building, we unexpectedly found a HUGE church. The Christian movement seems very strong in Korea and there are religious buildings everywhere. That was very surprising to me. This church in particular was very imposing. Try to find the picture of the church in my Album and notice the person climbing the stairs to notice the hugeness of it.
We had dinner in a food court and my appetite for Korean food was so big I ordered two meals. The second one was exquisite: kimichi sauce with rice, cheese and vegetables cooked in a stone bowl served with assortments of small plates of fish and vegetables.
Tonight I wanted a break from the rest of the gang so I went off to Itaewon again during the night this time. I saw a glimpse of what an Asian red light could look like: prostitutes displayed in windows and woman ushering you in their establishments. At some point one young looking woman came up to me and pleaded me to have fun with her for 100,000 won (about 120$ CAD) and she was very insisting. I made it clear I was there to have a beer or two and not looking for that kind of entertainment.
I went to a small pub and ending up meeting another person from Quebec there for travel so we chatted a while and went bar hopping. I ended up sleeping in other hostel on the couch in the lobby without having to pay.
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March 25
As most trips end, this was a particularly sunny and warm day. We returned to the Dondaemon market because the guys wanted to shop around for things before they leave. We broke off in pairs and my friend and I walked in a poor neighborhood and took a picture of two women peeling vegetables on the street.
I had 30,000 Won left (about 27$ CAD) so instead of converting it back to Yen which would not have been that advantageous I bought yet another pair of shoes that I don't even know how I will bring back at this point!
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About the hostel: the hostel was very cheap, 15$ a night, but it was also very dirty. It had this lingering smell of sweat and moisture that always struck us like a blow in the face everytime we entered. This time we had a 4 bed room so we felt it was more private. The most hated part of the hostel though, and agreed by all the customers, was the bathroom. The area is as big as a medium-sized closet and when you take a shower you are between the toilette and the sink. I really did not enjoy taking showers there, but having the shower running right on the same floor as the toilet is the norm in Korea.
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