On Saturday, I flipped through my guidebook, picked a place with historical buildings, grabbed spending money and headed downstairs to hop on the express bus to Seoul. I had prepared for a long trek, as the other teachers had talked about how it gets old after doing it every weekend. Coming from L.A., an hour on public transit isn't that bad and I was in Seoul before I knew it. I got off a stop early, but found a coffee shop and figured out the best way to get to the district which had the stuff to look at.
I wandered around trying to find the metro and bumped into a tourist, named Blaine, originally from Canada who had been teaching in China for the last 8 years. I asked where he was headed and we ended up taking the train together to Bukchon where there were traditional houses nested in with all the modern shops (and *ahem* smells) of Seoul. As we talked, he seemed kind of awkward and not much of a "oops, we found a palace that's over 1000 years old, let's go in!" and more of a "I'm super awkward and might kill you in one of these alleys" kind of companion and I decided we should part ways. I left him in the Hanok (traditional houses) neighborhood. The houses were pretty awesome (again, pictures to follow as soon as my laptop has internet) and walking through the narrow streets of the Bukchon Hanok reminded me of walking through the alleys of Venice Beach with all the craftsmen houses.
I wandered into a museum of Korean Buddhist art, which said it was open, but there was no attendant. I eventually found someone and paid for a ticket, and looked through the small collection of tapestries, carvings and sculptures from centuries ago. I wasn't allowed to take photos of the collection, but it's pretty much your standard Buddhist art, though some of the buddhas had pedo-staches.
Since I was right across the street from the Changdeokgung Palace, I decided to explore and try to get into the Secret Garden before it closed. I didn't make it to the Secret Garden, but did see some pretty gorgeous landscaping and architecture. I'll write a blog on the palace with pictures and information.
After walking the palace grounds, I noticed I was hungry and decided to hit up Itaewon (the foreigner area of Seoul) for some familiar food at restaurants known to have veggie friendly cuisine. I went to Buddha's Belly, a Thai restaurant, and got some delicious spring rolls and mixed veggies (sadly on white rice). Looking for a place with good beer on tap can be difficult here, but Itaewon caters to foreigners and across the way from Buddha's Belly, there's a pub and a sports bar with some decent beer. 3 Alleys Pub and Sam Ryan's are owned by the same person, but 3 Alleys is more the older expats and Sam Ryan's is the younger. I spent the rest of the night drinking beer with a couple of guys from the Air Force, arguing about vegetarianism, Israel-Palestine and other things. I kicked out of the pub around 11pm and hoped on the train back home.
Trains in Seoul only run until mid-night, even on a Saturday. My train stopped about halfway to Bupyeong. I was super tired and confused, found a group of foreigners and asked if they knew what was going on. They said they'd be caught in the situation before and usually took a cab home from the station. Not really wanting to pay late night cab fare (pretty much whatever the driver wants to charge) I looked for someone else to get information from. I bumped into two English teachers from Seattle, one of whom spoke enough Korean to find us a bus that dropped me back off right by my house.
The entire ride back to Incheon, we were noticing that there were lines of bus 88's running from the station about every 2 minutes. Why would this train stop at midnight if so many people still used it? Is it really better to have the buses going later? Trains have dedicated tracks and don't have to wait on traffic.
It was raining when I got home and a pretty much collapsed, exhausted on my bed so I could wake up and finish putting my apartment together the next day.
Going back to Seoul next Saturday to see more of it.
~Sarah/Veggie
e wi-fi here. I made a friend who is going to take me to a veggie dinner tonight! Her name's Erika and she's been teaching here for five weeks and was in China for 10 months before that. She's from Pennsylvania and has family out here in Korea, but doesn't speak Korean yet. We're *hopefully* going to be gym buddies and I'm going to look into taking a Korean class with her in Seoul Tu, Thur, every other Friday. Yay social life!