Seoul - There and back again (yeah...I can't think of an original title)

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Well hello people!

It has been quite a while. Technically not too much had happened until last weekend. The weekends we stay in Buyeo do not provide sufficient writing material for this blog. I just don’t think people want to hear about an uneventful walk around the city, followed by a homemade dinner and a movie. I am super bored having just written these last two sentences. On to something better, this past weekend we went back up to Seoul. We were past due for a visit with our friends in Incheon and we also needed to do some Christmas shopping so it was a win-win.

I had heard of these night markets in Seoul. I did some research and realized that they did exist. I found them in a travel guide we had and I started to get excited. I read that they were closed on Saturday so we had to go on the Friday night. These markets were said to have many goods all at wholesale value, that’s the appeal for the night version of these markets. There are two famous night markets and they happened to be in close proximity, of course I was hoping we could go to both but I knew that might be pushing my luck. So that was the plan head to Seoul straight on Friday and stay in one of the night market areas. I was so excited. A whole night of shopping!

So we got into Seoul and headed straight for a bookstore. This is another huge draw for us for big cities. English books are precious commodities here and Seoul has a lovely collection. After buying way more books than we wanted to carry around all weekend we headed to namdeamoon - the out door night market, the other one is an indoor night market. Our first mission upon arrival was to find a hotel to put down our now very heavy luggage. We see a sign on top of a building that says hotel and head that way. There was a sign on the hotel that read “tourist hotel.” This is the type of place that will cost lot of money and low and behold it was 120,000 Won a night, with the awful conversion that is about 150 cad. This was a little more than we were wiling to spend. On our third attempt we tried a “love motel” where they rent by the hour or the night. They looked at us and just said no. So then we tried one more. There was no English sign just a Korean one saying motel. We walked in and wouldn’t you believe it, the owner spoke English and grew up in Scarborough. He showed us the room, which was functional and charged us only 40 bucks. At this point I asked about the Namdaemoon market. I said that I was just wondering when it got busy. We had arrived around 11:00 and it didn’t look to busy or open. The read that action typically takes place around 12:00-4:00 but I just wanted to make sure. The guy said “oh don’t go there. They charge at least double the price for foreigners. I recommend you go to Dongdaemoon.” This is the other night market.

So we take the subway three stops over to Dongdaemoon. We get off the subway and walk outside only to realize that we had already been to this area the last time we were in Seoul and Jonathan absolutely hated the place. So he was pretty excited. I said I was sorry and that I didn’t remember the name and he was gracious. We went in one of the mall type buildings (I say mall type because it is just a building with a whole bunch of spaces that individual people rent out to sell their goods. There are no actual stores). We go to the 7th floor to look at electronics and the whole floor is empty, not a good start. We went to another one of these buildings, and the first floor looked more like a department store but it was all sectioned off because it was closed, only floors 7 and 8 were open and they were much like the last building. It was very strange being there and seeing everything closed on the first floor. I felt like I had gotten trapped in the department store after closing.

Now comes my favourite part. So at this point we were all finished our attempt at enjoying a failed mission. The subways had closed so we had to take a taxi, and that wasn’t so bad because taxis are very cheap here and we were only about 4 mins away from our “love motel” so a taxi should be about $3.00. We were finding it quite difficult to waive down a taxi and once we finally did the cab driver asked where we were going and when we told him the driver said $20.00 bucks. We were a little confused so we said no. At this point we looked up and down the market and saw that there were many many people looking for a cab, Koreans and foreigners alike, and the cabs were picking the best fares. There was a foreign couple from the Philippines that started talking to us and saying they couldn’t believe the prices and looking very tired and a little angry - understandable. So then Jonathan and I reasoned that 20 bucks wasn’t so bad considering the situation and how tired we were. So after five mins of trying to hail a cab one finally talked to us, we told him we wanted to go to Namdaemoon and he said $40.00. Okay, on principle I cannot pay the same amount of money for our motel on a 4 min cab ride.

Now our only option is simple, or so we think, we will have to walk. We check out a map and agree that it looks fairly easy. We are also thinking that three subway stops cannot be that far of a walk. Well it was. We walked for about an hour and half. We finally made it to the area after asking for help on more than one occasion. Once in the area we still had no idea where to go. I saw two younger guys and asked them if they knew of a hotel that was near ours. The guy heard me say something and pointed us in one direction the other guy gets on his phone and I start spelling out the hotel name. We start walking. The one guy gets off his phone and says okay its this way and takes us down an alley way. I would possibly have been scared if we weren’t in Korea. I think this may be the safest country I have ever been to and Koreans are generally very nice. These guys were so nice that were willing to walk us right to the hotel door but once we recognized the area we thanked them profusely and went on our way. We got back at around three in the morning with a great story. Frustrating at the time but an experience nonetheless!

The next morning we headed to an area called Insadong. It is more of a traditional Korean market. This place was amazing. We did all of our Christmas shopping in about two hours. Never has Christmas shopping been so enjoyable. I think because we weren’t in a mall things were less hectic and it was nice that everything we needed was in one area. It was seriously enjoyable! Then we headed to Yungsan, the Tech market, floors upon floors of technological goods. We picked up a spare battery for our new camera - we bought a much better camera about two weeks ago. Yungsan is a really cool place because you can get cheaper deals if you pay with cash and you can barter a little with them.

After all the shopping we headed to Incheon and dropped our luggage off at our friends place and then we got ready to go to out. Our friend Sid had convinced us to go to a Jens Lekman concert. He is an independent Swedish artist. Sid is absolutely obsessed with him and had actually tried to see him in New York but the concert had sold out. We decided to go to a couple bars in the area before the concert because we had to pick up tickets early and we needed to kill some time. We met up with another one of our friends before we headed there. His name is Mark; he is a very chill guy, really funny and very cool. He is an extremely calm guy. I am stressing this for a reason. Sid was talking on the phone with Mark before we met up with him and happened to say, “Mark just relax,” when mark wasn’t mad at all. Jonathan thought this was so funny so they both decided to roll with this all night. It was pretty hilarious. I did eventually blow the joke but the journey to that point was priceless. We are talking about telling a guy who is never angry to just “relax, you seem to be on edge tonight.” On the bus over to Seoul he was completely persuaded that he was acting on edge. Later he said, “Did Sid tell you guys to tell me to relax all night?” I thought the joke was over at this point but not so much. It was about 15 mins after this that I told him he was right. Sid wasn’t so happy; he said he would have kept the joke going until well into the following week. That would have been pretty impressive since Mark had already guessed what had happened. Needless to say it was still pretty funny and we all got many laughs, even Mark.

The concert was amazing and quite intimate. We were right up front because we waited in line to get in first. There were two openers. The first one was really good. He reminded me of a Korean cross between Elvis Presley and a punk from London in the late 70’s. The band even did “My generation” as an encore. The second band was all right but now where near as good as the first one. Jens was incredible. I had heard a couple songs before we went but he blew me away in person. He has a very unique sound. I attached a video from the concert, you can get the idea of his sound. You can hear back up vocals by Sid but if you can drown that out the video actually sounds pretty good. I am definitely a fan.

After the concert ended Sid said he wished he could meet him. I had a bit of liquid courage in me so I hoped on the stage and we went back there. He was a super cool guy, which makes me more of a fan. We thanked him for the show and got a photo for Sid. We took one normal one and then I suggested that we take another one pretending we were being abducted and that we were angry about it. Well apparently Jens is a pro at this because he has the best I am angry about being abducted by aliens face I have ever seen. I was way off, a fairly disappointing show by me and Sid just looks like he is surprised that they are taking him. Overall the night was extremely entertaining.

On Sunday I woke up in rough shape and had the brilliant idea of taking Excedrin on an empty stomach to get rid of my lurking headache. Taking Excedrin, which is NSAID, I later found out, and has caffeine in it as well, coupled with the alcohol, has a tendency to cause something called gastritis. I was in A LOT of pain on Sunday and I was even worse on Monday and I am only now recovering almost a week later. I even had to visit the Doctor on Wednesday. Basically I am a champ. Lesson learned.

On Thursday my Vice Principle offered to give me acupuncture to help ease my stomach pain. He happens to be trained in acupuncture to my benefit. This was the first time I have ever had acupuncture. He thought that I wouldn’t want to do it because there is a bit of blood involved but I was all for it. Worst case it would focus my pain to another place. It was very interesting and quite relaxing even though I was in the staff room and it was lunchtime so people were everywhere and obviously looking at me. I would kind of like to find a place that will do it on my back.

Two foreigners left this week and invited us to raid their place. This was very exciting for us, as we were still in need a few things to make our place a little homier. We now have a coffee table - I realize this is a must- and a coat rack. Very exciting. We are also happy that the Thailand situation has been somewhat resolved. I just hope the corrupt party that was in power doesn’t some how swindle their way back in. That was quite a protest.

Okay well I think I’ll end it here. Happy almost Christmas and other holidays! Keep sending the emails. Lots of love to you all!

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Photos

Incheon People
That's Mark in the top left and Sid Top right. Malorie is the girl on the left, Janice in the middle and I can't remember the blond girls name..opps

The Ho Bar
Where is the tact people?

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Sid needed to emphasize how hopping it was.