Advertisement
Published: October 12th 2014
Sunny Saturday in Specular Seoul!
The day started with a one hour bus ride from Incheon to Seoul. This is like going from San Jose to San Francisco… you can’t tell where one city ends and the next starts. Multi-laned freeway with 30 foot high noise barriers virtually the entire trip. Over the tops of the noise barriers we could see miles and miles of high rise condos as we moved from the industrial port city of Incheon to the sophisticated city of Seoul. Seoul has a population of 11 million, and we felt like all 11 million were out on the highways, in the parks and just everywhere enjoying the Saturday sunshine.
Our first stop was the Seoul Folklore Museum, a new modern, beautiful facility. Through the exhibits we were taken from 700,000 years ago (this is not a typo) during a time Koreans used rocks for chisels, though the various Kings and Queens to modern day dress, icons and way of life. Once again we had a great tour guide, but this one called “Lucy” must have been a kindergarten teacher in a former life ;-) as we left each section of our tour throughout the day, she had us line up on two’s so she could count us and assure herself she had not lost anyone ;-) Most of us just smiled and got in line but there are always a few who have to grumble…LOL
The Folklore Museum was built on the same grounds as the royal palace of the Kings and Queens of Korea so we headed across the grounds (after lining up again ;-) to take a look. On the way there we passed a circle of concrete animals representing the 12 animals of the Korean Zodiac. They are based on your birth year. I’m the year of the Dog- which makes total sense- and Cope is the year of the Snake- not sure what to make of that LOL! Of course we took pictures with our dog and snake ;-)
At the Royal Palace grounds we saw the Kings residence which was very large and grand. The Queen’s residence behind it, which was smaller and the very small residences of the concubines. All the ceilings are painted in beautiful bright colors. I’m thinking of painting the beams on my patio cover in the same way… absolutely beautiful ;-) Cope’s cringing at the thought that kind of a “honey-do project” ;-)
As we walked along, we turned a corner and there before us was a beautiful man made lake and the Kings Grand Banquet Hall, which was last used around 1980 after Nixon and Carter visited. Many of these buildings were built 650 years ago, burned to the ground in a war with Japan, and rebuilt 150 years ago. The rock bases of the buildings are still there but the wooden parts have been re constructed. While South Korea is no longer a monarchy, the people still revere their ancestors while enjoying living and working in a democratic republic.
Back into line for counting and then on the bus headed to north Seoul and the financial center of the city. We stopped on a street that could have been Los Angeles, Paris or New York City. Modern, upscale and beautiful with festivals going on in the wide median strip and buildings reaching to the sky. We headed into the Seoul Financial Center which houses companies like Boeing, Delta, McGraw Hill, Century 21, and others and took the elevator down to B-2 level, where there was a large mall area with very upscale restaurants. Many American restaurants, coffee shops and a lovely flower shop. We headed to a Korean restaurant for lunch, complete with Korean beef and noodles, kimchi, rice, cabbage in several forms (pickled and raw), salad, and fresh plum juice. As for Cope, he will eat virtually anything and he was hungry so without waiting to see “how it all worked” ;-) he started in on the “soup” and downed every bite before finding out it was a sauce for the rice LOL!
As we left, after lining up …once again… we’re getting pretty good at this… Lucy doesn’t even have to tell us to line up, we just do it ;-) we head for “Antique Street” which is a busy shopping area of the city. the streets were full of families, young people, markets, festivals, and bunches of police officers preparing to make sure a protest which was gathering stayed peaceful… we did not stick around to find out what it was all about ;-).
Antique Street was filled with the wonderful smells of food being cooked in pots on the street, and booths/stalls selling every kind of jewelry, merchandise and eats you can imagine. Just seeing all the
modern (read Western) dress of all the people, particularly the young people, was so interesting-nothing behind the times here in the heart of Seoul. Rarely did we see traditional dress. That would be worn mostly for festivities such as a wedding. People on the street were dressed just like the folks in any big city… everything from jeans and tennis shoes to short skirts and high heels. Everyone we came in contact with was polite, gracious and helpful. We went to a market with the usual trinkets, went in a Starbucks, shopped for trinkets, and generally enjoyed the masses of people shopping and sight seeing-very few tourists.
One strong impression we had of both Incheon and Seoul were the incredible numbers of high rise apartments-not low income dwellings-but for middle and upper classes as well. Since land is at such a premium in the city, the rents can range from $1000 per month for a 300 sq. ft. small apartment, to $3000 per month for a 3 bedroom apartment. The financial district and surrounding areas was clearly a very healthy economic zone with no sign of “street people” or signs of distressed populations. Also this is a country of cars. Bicycles and motor scooters are around but not much. People own South Korean produced cars here so there is TRAFFIC ;-)
As 3:30 came around Lucy asked us what time we had to be on board? What? She doesn’t know…uh oh… some people on the bus thought 4pm, some 4:30 others insisted it was 5pm… Finally someone pulled out the “Daily Itinerary” from her purse and good grief we need to be on board in one hour! Sooooo… no last stop for us… which would have been the wholesale fabric market… no problem as buying hundreds of yards of fabic doesn’t sound like something we’re interested on doing…. LOL. So our driver Mr. Lee slowly negotiated the narrow streets heading back to the freeway. Despite the traffic, we made the final call, with 10 minutes to spare ;-). Just after we checked back in on the ship, the captain came on and said the ship had received a call from 6 passengers who were still an hour out…yikes! Not sure what they didn’t understand about boarding at 4:30 ;-) In any event we might be 6 passengers lighter.
On board we headed to dinner and as the main course was being served Cope noticed that we were in some kind of “lock”. So we stood up and went to the large stern windows to see we were in the Incheon Floodgate “lock” between the harbor and the Yellow Sea. A fabulous end to another amazing day in Asia ;-)
Next Stop: Xingang, Peoples Republic of China
This is the port for Tianjin (1 hour away) and Beijing (3 hours away)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.064s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0354s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Sharon
non-member comment
Amazing trip!
Good thing you are blogging so you can remember all the things you are seeing! Again, such descriptive writing, I feel like I'm there! So happy for your travel experiences!