Seoul Day 2
We have had a very full day! Kyle got back last night around 4am! He had a great time with our new Korean friends Joy and Jeunmoo, but as picture happy as Kyle is he forgot to get any pictures of them. But he told me that every time he thought they were all going to leave the men would order more beer and fried chicken. It was some of the best fried chicken I have ever had, the concept is so simple but so yummy. Salty crispy chicken and ice cold beer sitting on a little stool on the sidewalk! Amazing.
This morning shortly after we woke up our phone in our room rang. Kyle was downstairs getting coffee. At first I was a little nervous to answer it since I don’t speak Korean. But I picked it up and it was Nami!!!! We had emailed her friend that we are going to meet up with and go hiking with in a week, and we had copied her on the email. We let him know where we were staying in case he needed to call us. It was so wonderful to hear from her. She gave us tips on where to buy sheets and big rubber boots for Kyle for our upcoming farm adventure. She also wanted us to meet up with a friend of hers from college.
Younga (Kim) came to our guesthouse with her daughter Annie to take us to lunch and show us the way to a large market (Namdaemun) She took us to a Korean restaurant where we had bulgogi, dolsot bibimbap, and a squid pancake thing, plus the assortment of side dishes that comes with most Korean meals. She also ordered us a drink that tasted like thick apple cider with cinnamon. Everything was so good, and it was nice to not have to think and try so hard just to order something yummy. Kim spoke enough English to communicate with us, and her daughter was so cute! She paid for our meal, which was so nice and unnecessary. Kyle and I have joked that we really only needed to pay for our plane tickets here, that once we got to Asia there are all sorts of people who will pay our way, hehe. Not really though, we always try to pay and they always stop us!
After our amazing lunch Kim took us to the market. This was the most elaborate market I have ever seen. We found boots for Kyle right away, and Kim was able to find out the price and then find another vendor that sold us the same exact boots for $20 cheaper. She had to get going to pick up her son, but we felt comfortable enough to find our way around from there. We spent 5 hours at the market and still did not see it all. We found a duvet and a cute Korean style apron like the ones they wear in the K-Dramas. Kyle also found a lovely man purse as he is getting tired of carrying both cameras, a language guide book, wallet, notepad, pen and change in his pockets!
I wanted to buy so much more, but we are limited on space. The people watching was so fun, and we sampled a lot of street food, the Mandu (a dumpling filled with meat and veggies) was so yummy! We stopped to have a beer, and I of course had to go to the bathroom. The waitress took me to this tiny room by the entrance that looked like a broom closet with a drain in the floor with a little cement border around it, and a tiny-tiny urinal. I could not even figure out how to aim at the drain so close to the wall so I just waited in there for a few moments so she would think I went and then went back to the table. This was the second time I have had to fake going to the bathroom because I just can not stand either the smell or the maneuvering since I have been to Korea. I have learned that it is better to use the bathrooms down in the subway areas than at the small little eateries.
We are now resting back at our guesthouse, washing laundry and updating the blog! I hope it is interesting to read, we are definitely having a wonderful time experiencing it.
So we were sitting in our room relaxing and talking about we should do in the days to come when we heard something that sounded a lot like thunder. Angy asked me, “Kyle was that thunder?”, I replied that it sounded a lot like it. Well, after about 10 minutes of hearing the thunder it finally dawned on Angy. Our clothes we “drying”, on the clothesline on the roof. So we both jumped up and ran upstairs to the roof to get our nice and wet clothes off of the line. The two of us were quite a sight. Running around the clotheslines trying to rip off all our socks, t-shirts, underwear, and sheets with the wind and rain.
We were able to get everything gathered up in our laundry bag and get back into our room. Thankfully before we left we had purchased a camping clothesline with clips from REI. We still had to use some of the rope we brought with to make it from one side of the room to the other. It worked out pretty well. All of our clothes and the new duvet we purchased fit on there.
I had brought with as many little handy things as I could. For example, I have two different sizes of zip ties, string, duct tape, electrical tape, glow in the dark tape, twist ties, rubber bands and many other little things that do not take up a lot of room but always come in handy.
Well now it’s off to the town. I wonder what adventures await this evening?
So the night began with us wanting to go to the N’Seoul Tower which apparently has an amazing view of the city at night. Unfortunately the weather was looking pretty crappy and we wouldn’t be able to see much of the city so we make a change in our plans. That is the great thing about not planning out every day of your trip. You can be as flexible as you want to be. We decided instead to head into the happening scene of Hongik University. Apparently it is a pretty young place and there are many street performers there. Sounds like fun to me.
But once again, it is good to be flexible. We were on the train to go to Hongik University when Angy decided that she didn’t want to go. She thought that it was too late and we were going too far.
Things look very different at night compared to the daytime. We got a little lost at first. We were walking fairly confidently to our destination seeing as we had been there with Kim earlier that day. But as soon as we realized that we had some how made a complete circle. Once we finally got to the city center of Insadong, we ate at a small restaurant that seemed to be an Italian restaurant. (Angy) I had two glasses of wine, and Kyle had some beer. The food was good, it was like a cheesy rice dish with shrimp and squid. I am not a big fan of squid. After we ate we set off in search of more to do and see. We sang a Mika song at a karaoke booth at an arcade. Played a few video games and then headed on in search of more. We finally made it to the busiest part of Insadong. Business men stumbled drunkly down the street often supported by two of their friends, young women also clung to their boyfriends while they walked drunkenly down the street as well! It was so much fun to watch. We went into a restaurant that seemed very lively. We tried to order but it was quite difficult, we finally settled on sojo and something from the menu that the waiter said was “Delisious” It wasn’t. Some kind of soup with clams in it, or some type of shellfish. Kyle had a bad experience at McCormick and Schmicks with mussels, so he was a little gun shy to eat it. We had a little bit, it was good but not exactly what we were looking for. Another bottle of soju, and a short conversation with the table next to us, and we were off to the next place. This was a small café type place, and I was able to get some red wine, I was trying not to mix, but not a lot if places serve red wine. At this point I had not had enough to eat, and I had had a lot to drink. Bad combination. I was really quite drunk, and performing some type of dance for Kyle behind a room divider screen (the café was pretty much deserted) When we finally left I was ready for bed and resembled one of the many other drunk girls stumbling the streets, hanging on their boyfriends!! We caught a cab and made it back to the hotel, I think there are a couple embarrassing videos that Kyle took of me that night. Maybe we can use part of it for our next Amazing Race application tape. I basically passed out on the futon, and didn’t even wash my face or brush my teeth! Kyle just kept laughing at me!
