Seoul, Korea

The Morning After

There are no words in the English language to describe how I feel this morning.

No, wait, there are: Too Much Soju. Jesus, guns are illegal in this country, but packing the devil's wrath in a bottle and serving it at karaoke joints, isn't. Explain that one to me.

Good thing they have the perfect hangover cure in Korea for just this affliction (apparently, it's pretty common, go figure). James took me to the local stew place and ordered me some sort of chigae, chock full of kimchi goodness. I couldn't eat more than a few spoonfuls, but what I did manage to get down made me feel a lot better. Black coffee and raw egg my ass, chili and fermented cabbage is what you need to sober you up.

Futureshop, eat your heart out

I'm not much of a gadget freak, but when James told me that there was a place the size of an airplane hangar, stuffed full of electronic goodies, ranging from the kick-ass mobile phones they have here to full-blown HD LCD televisions so big that it'd take a battalion of North Korean child-soldiers to move it, I jumped at the chance to go. Destination: Yongsan electronics market.

Yongsan literally translates to "Dragon Mountain" (8 years of Chinese school and this is all I can read - and really, I think I learned these characters from some Bruce Lee movie). Despite the name, there were no giant, sky-borne lizards breathing fire down upon the masses. And it's not much of a mountain either. Wonder why the name.

I was kind of expecting something like Tokyo's Akihabara, even after James told me it was an indoor market, but it turned out to be more like Markham's Pacific Mall instead. I was looking at the cell phones and checking to see whether Seoul might have an early release of the new iPod Shuffle, while James was checking out electronic dictionaries. In the end, we both left empty-handed, as the phones were all CDMA, the iPod release dates seemed to be coordinated around the world for mid-late October and the electronic dictionaries were pretty damned expensive.

One thing I did notice though, was the lack of booth babes to lure the techno-geeks in to buy the store's wares. I figured that there would be at least a few scantily-clad women, beckoning by-passing men, like sirens to the rocky shore.

We worked up something of an appetite walking around the multi-level market (you'd be surprised how tiring lust can be, no wonder they made it a sin), so we decided to head out into the surrounding urban area to grab a bite and take in some natural sunlight.

Korean Beauty

We walked into a place near the station and tucked in.

There are few prettier sights than this. I sucked this stuff down like it was going out of style, I just couldn't get enough. And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that gam ja tang is the only thing I know how to say in Korean...ok, maybe a little to do with it, but I wouldn't have ordered anything else, even if I did know how.

I was a little shaky on doing the cooking, but James had it down.

There is no Free Will

This may look like nothing more than a regular, run-of-the-mill subway station, and really, that's what it is. But I had one of those moments where I was sure I'd seen this in a dream before. Now I can't remember exactly what happened in that dream, but it was as creepy enough that I had to take a photo of it: concrete proof of the fact that I indeed, possess the preternatural gift of foreknowledge (hence, free will cannot exist).

Apgujeong

I hissed and recoiled in fear like Dracula to the cross when James told me that we were meeting up with Chris for dinner in the fashion district. What the hell? With all the fantastic places there must be in this city, he wanted me to go to some pretentious little corner of Seoul and watch while stylish 20-somethings pranced around in their designer whatsits and weirdo sunglasses? Please.

Well, proven wrong again, this place was great. I think I have a bad understanding of what a fashion district is because of where I come from. It was different here, just normal people shopping for (expensive) clothes. But I didn't feel that out of place.

We met up with Chris and found a fantastic BBQ place with a patio that allowed us to watch the pretty people walk by as we grilled our meat. Can't ask for more than that, can you?

Parting Thoughts

Ok, so it's a little premature for parting thoughts, seeing as how I still have another full day (plus a morning) to go, but I've formed all the ideas I am going to form about this place, so I might as well just have it out now. Tokyo (and Japan as a whole, I guess) is just plain weird, often bordering on bizarre and otherworldly. But Seoul is different, it's more real, like it is at home, but it has all the cool stuff that you can find in Tokyo. No giant statues of Ultraman or Astroboy near the train stations though and that's unfortunate.