Day 1: Thanks to Qatar, my journey was smooth and hassle free. Apart from the flight attendant who woke me up at 230am asking me if I wanted brunch. No I fucking do not woman, and thanks for disturbing my sleep.
The airport is miles outside of the city and about an hour on the metro. The old man next to me on the train tries to engage in conversation, although he speaks no word of English. I’m pretty sure he asks me where I’m from, and when it’s clear I don’t understand, he starts listing all the countries he knows before I jump in and put him out of his misery. The people here though are friendly, respectful and civilised. And the best part is they couldn’t give two fucks about me, I’m just another tourist. No celebrity status here like in India.
I arrive at my hotel in Insadong around 7pm and head straight out in search of food. The area is very cute with lots of cafes, shops and restaurants in a labyrinth of little passageways. The first thing you notice is the smell of all the freshly baked salt bread, which is like a brioche croissant. I buy three, cause I’m a fat bastard and want to try the different fillings. For dinner I head to Ikseon Banju, a fusion restaurant. I order the beef tartare with seawood crisps which was delicious. It’s then an early night to catch up on some much needed sleep.
I’d read before coming that the Koreans love their hiking, and that was very apparent by the sheer numbers piling onto the buses to the park entrance. Here they all are, dressed for Everest base camp with their jackets, boots, hiking poles and 40 litre backpacks, and me rocking up in shorts, trainers and a tank top. The climb is relatively short distance wise, but it’s relentlessly steep the whole way. The last 0.3 kilometres is scrambling up the surface of a rock with the help of fixed ropes. You’re rewarded with amazing views over Seoul. Be prepared to wait in a very long line for a photo at the top with the flag though. But it doesn’t count unless you touch the summit so needs must.
I finished much earlier than planned, so I had a wander along Cheonggyecheon stream and stopped for a coffee. The coffee culture here is nuts I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere. I think there are more coffee shops than people in this city and they’re all packed. These people must be constantly off their tits on caffeine and sugar.
That evening I’d booked a Korean BBQ and fried chicken food tour. It was just me and an American girl called Jackie, and our guide Jeff who was brilliant. He very quickly introduced us to Soju which is similar to vodka and is around 20%. It tastes super smooth so you don’t realise how strong it is until its too late! We were shotting the stuff all night and got through 6 bottles between the three of us. Usually the guides don’t drink much when giving tours, but Jeff was putting it away! The food was also delicious. We tried pork skirt and pork belly with lots of yummy dipping sauces.
As we leave the venue, Jackie casually projectile vomits in the street. I silently judge her for not being able to hold her drink. Little did I know at that point that I’d spend the early hours of the morning with my head in the toilet spewing my ringer. Never again Soju. Never again.
The trooper that she is though, she carried onto the next venue which was fried chicken and beer, another popular Korean pastime. I was hammered by this point, so things from this moment onwards get a little patchy. We were served beer in giant pyrex jugs, which they mix with, you guessed it, soju to make a drink called somaek. LETHAL. The chicken was, I’m sure, delicious.
Not wanting the night to end yet, we make Jeff take us to karaoke! Not that he needed much persuasion as he was having just as good a time as us. I couldn’t really tell you where it was or how long we were in there, but I can tell you that the three of us absolutely BUTCHERED a number of classics, as the video evidence shows. When I get back to the hotel, my friend Rachel is waiting in reception for me having just arrived off her flight. What a welcome for her! Me havering shite and then getting up several times in the night to vomit.
Day 3: I am ROUGH. I can’t even keep water down this morning, so Rachel heads out to explore before I’m able to force myself out of bed to go meet her at Gyeongbokgung palace. I’ve seen a lot of temples in my time, and this one was pretty unremarkable. From there we wandered to the Hanock village which was cute, before I called it a day and headed back to my hotel for a nice long nap. I woke feeling much better, and ready for our food tour at Gwangjang market.
We were a group of 10 people, plus our guide Jacob who looked like a K-Pop star. The indoor market has around 5,000 different stalls and we went to around 7 or 8 in total trying about 11 different foods. My favourites were the pork dumpling and the beef soup. There was only one thing which I refused to eat, which was the live octopus. I’m sure I’ve eaten way worse things on other food tours in other countries, but given I couldn’t even keep down water 5 hours previous, I decided not to risk it! I think only a few people were brave enough to give it a go in the end. Throughout the night, Jacob taught us a bunch of Korean drinking games. The drinking culture is huge here, although there’s a lot of rules and etiquette that goes along with it, such as you should never pour your own drink. After the tour we head for a beer at the 24 hour pub I found on my previous wander and then head back to our hotel for an early night, given it’s a 6am start tomorrow for the DMZ tour!
Day 4: We both feel very rough the next day. For some reason we both woke up at 2am and never managed to get back to sleep until the alarm went off at 6am. Our tour sets off at 7am and it’s a 90 minute bus ride to the first stop, a suspension bridge. The weather today is awful. Misty rain the whole day and very poor visibility. This meant when we got to the Dora observatory within the DMZ, the part where you can see into North Korea, we saw the square root of fuck all. Really disappointing given it’s the whole purpose of the visit. Instead, we watch the video on the screens showing you what you COULD be seeing on a clear day. Our guide brought binoculars, but not sure why she even bothered handing them out to us! Still, it was kind of weird knowing you were literally a few kilometres from the most isolated country in the world, and the eery weather added to the sombre mood. You half expected an army of North Koreans to emerge through the mist in a surprise attack.
From there we visited one of the four tunnels dug by North Korea as part of a series of attempted stealth attacks. The tunnels were discovered by the South Koreans so the attempts failed, although there’s likely many more tunnels as yet undiscovered. We entered the tunnel, which is 73 metres below the ground, and you can walk the length to within a few hundred metres from North Korea, although it’s now been blocked with a concrete wall.
When we get back to Seoul the sun is shining and its 28 degrees. Strange how the weather can be so different only 50km apart. That evening, we head to the Myeongdong district, where I sample some grilled cheese with a condensed milk dipping sauce. A heart attack on a stick, but also one of my new favourite flavour combination of foods. Several people recommended a noodle restaurant, Myeongdong Kyoja, so we headed there for dinner. The place is packed with locals, and they only have four items on the menu. They specialise in dumplings and pork noodle soup so we order both and it was absolutely delicious. But my tiny hands struggle with the chopsticks so eating becomes too much effort after a certain point.
After dinner we head to see the Nanta show. Not sure how I’d even begin to describe it so I’ll take the synopsis from the internet: “a captivating 90 minute show, the longest running in Korean history, displaying the comedic culinary attempts of four cooks under pressure”. It was random as hell, with lots of knives banging on chopping boards, cabbage cutting and kitchen utensil drumming mixed with slapstick comedy. A treat for the eyes and the ears.
Seoul has been an absolute blast and I’ve loved the city more than I thought I would. We’ll have another full day here on the return journey, which is good as there’s still lots we’ve yet to explore!
Next stop, the culinary food capital, Jeonju….
No comments:
Post a Comment