Seoul, Korea Day 3

Greetings all,

Writing to you after a great Tuesday in the city of Seoul. Today was shopping day (well more browsing for me since I didn't get a chance to get anything today).

We first started out in one of the huge markets in Dongdaemun. We first went into a multiple floor shopping market. Unlike the familiar malls of the U.S., small stands (only deep enough to fit one person) are filled with clothing of all types and styles. Current style seems to dictate flowing clothing that hangs from the body, floral prints, belts at the true waits and large, long necklaces to accessorize. Women's clothing is incredibly feminine (I know that sounds silly but you would know what I meant if you saw it).
It was hard to get a good shot of the multi-leved market.
"Anime- eyed" manequin.
A more "formal" department store with more expensive clothing displayed that was next door to the other market.
Neat bench outside the market advertising it.
Adorable stone owls near the subway. I wish I could have taken one home with me. :P
Outdoor market. It was way too hot and humid to be outside here. :P
From there (the more specific clothing malls) we moved to Myeong-dong. A huge shopping center, the streets are brimming with outdoor shops that range from small stores to chains like Forever 21. Items ranged from clothing to gifts and stationary and all in between.
Bustling with people shopping, eating and having a good time in the stores that sometimes can only be found on the upper floors its hard to take everything in at once. There are even cutely dressed store employees on the streets peddling the store's wears through microphones.
There were street vendors all over selling all sorts of candy and food. Min really wanted this candy that was basically sugar and soda burned and hardened. It was a traditional treat and quite tasty, with cutout shapes inside it that you should break the treat to match. Pictured above is one of Korea's famous treat vendors. Kind of like a show, this lively street vendor showed us how he could take a small hardened ball of honey and cornstarch and once he made a hole in the center stretch it over and over again to make strands that were thinner than my own hair. He takes those strands and wraps them around nuts to make delicious treats.
For lunch we went to a 3rd floor "cutlet" restaurant and had meat cutlets with cutlet sauce. Not being a huge meat fan I was surprised how much I enjoyed my chicken. With a side of rice, seaweed and pickled kaddishes it was quite delicious. Pictured above is a street vendor selling waffles.
We stopped off at one of the first Roman Catholic Churches in Korea. It was made mostly of brick but the inside had gorgeous stained glass and high ceilings.
Church interior.
After walking so much we took a break in a cafe, Minto I think it was called. There supposedly were multiple locations. It is a great place to hang out. I wish they had some like this in the states. Every chair was a comfy couch and you had the option of ordering some thing specific off the menu or just paying to sit there for a few hours and have refills on a liquid. The interior was very cute, reminded me of a Victorian children's book.
I went with the red bean sherbet. Not as you would think it. Finely crushed ice is placed in a bowl with milk poured over it. Topped with sweet red beans, candied fruit and chunks of mochi, and a scoop of pistachio ice cream it was a little bit of sweet heaven.
Even the way to the bathroom was adorable. There were people's notes and drawings that they had written on the back of their checks pinned to a clothes line down the hallway. Some of them were really cute, some had wonderful drawings, one was really sad and some were really funny.

To round off the day we went to a photobooth and took some cute pictures on silly backgrounds. Quintessential way to end a day (hopefully I will be able to post some of the scans when I'm back in the U.S.).

Till next time,

~Val

Seoul, Korea Day 2

Greetings all,

On Monday I had another exciting day in Korea.

I started the day off slowly by watching some Korean cartoons and going for a stroll in the Olympic park again with Alicia.

A strange sculpture with natural grass in the park.


Another view of the Olympic park and the monument inside it.

A very bike friendly city, Korea has bike pumps at many of the bike racks situated throughout the city. Also, on a lot of staircases there are every tiny bike ramps.

For lunch we headed for Lotteworld Department store. As many of you may or may not know many large department stores in Korea (and Japan from what I've heard) house supermarkets and food courts on the bottom floor. Delicious and affordable we decided to eat at one. Pictured is a desert stand. We ate some sort of rice, fish and egg on a stick thing. I wish I knew the actual term and could be more descriptive than that but that is how I would describe it. It was very delicious, I wish they had that in American food courts. Another thing that I found unique about a lot of food stands and street vendors is that they sold fruit on a stick instead of ice cream or other overly sweet items.

We took a different way back and passed a bunch of small side streets filled with interesting items.

After lunch Alicia and I met up with her friend from Stony Brook Min and we went to Gyeongbok Palace. To me it is very expansive and quite large. It was gorgeous; there were many separate buildings and gardens. The palace was one of the largest and was considered one of the main palaces in Korea. It is currently being re-constructed (heavy construction all over) due to destruction in wars. Approximately 40% of the original palace still remains.
One of the King's quarters. Brightly painted exterior and interior with huge ceilings.
Statue of a guardian animal to guard the palace. Min says she thinks this particular one pictured was a chicken... Instead of following the guided tour given by the palace, Min gave us the history that involved every last detail about the concubines of the palace. ;P
An interior view of the high ceiling of one of the king's spaces.
A view of a stone railing, enclosed walkway and mountains. It was amazing how if you looked one way you saw mountains and if you looked another way you saw a bustling modern city skyline.
I took so many wonderful pictures of the palace grounds it was hard to pick which ones to post.
The king's banquet hall was on the water raised on stilts.
Such a beautiful landscape.
A slightly more close up shot of the colorful decorations on the buildings.
The tall building in the distance is now an art museum.
Don't open the well Min, we don't want a curse to follow us back!
A view from right outside of the palace; a busy intersection.
After going to the palace we went to this very cute area full of little coffee shops and specialty stores. Forgive me for not remembering the name of the section of the city but it was adorable. It was definitely a hot spot for hip and trendy twenty somethings to hang out. We even saw an on location photo shoot going on. Probably for some sort of clothing store/magazine.
For dinner we stopped by a traditional Korean food place and got some cold noodles and dumplings. They were so delicious I wish I had taken a photograph of it before i devoured it to show you all. The noodles were slightly sweet and very thin while the dumplings were large and flavorful.
After and long, but painless and easy subway ride (I really like the subways, so new, clean and organized) I got back to my room and went to bed. Thus concludes another day in Seoul.

See you next time,

~Val

Seoul, Korea Day 1

Greetings all,

I decided to create a quick blog of my travels to keep you all updated. The posts will be brief and I apologize in advance for poor grammar as jet-lag makes me very disoriented.

Without further ado, welcome to the 2010 Summer postings of Val the Traveling Fox. :D

Today is the end of Sunday, July 25th 2010, Day 1 of Seoul, Korea (technically Day 2 but yesterday was 12 hours worth of plane travel plus delays :p).

I am staying at the Seoul Olympic Parktel, right below the Han river. The Parktel is a hotel that was created for the 1988 Olympics. It is part of a now huge sports complex and park. The park is not only home to the olympic monuments but also a fine arts museum and expansive sculpture garden. There are actually quite a lot of interesting sculptures all over the city that are very interesting to look at. The Hotel has 18 floors and a buffet on the top floor. I love how the perimeter of the hotel has a sidewalk that contains a texture much like an track with some bounce to it so that runners and joggers are more comfortable.

Here is a view of the hotel. It towers over the park but not over the expansive apartment complex across the street.

The view from the room. It was very foggy on the first day. There is an expansive park right in the middle of the city. Think central park in manhattan; an oasis of nature.

Another view of the skyline from the hotel.

A view of the World Peace Gate in the Olympic Park. There is a lineup of flags on the other side and a eternal flame of peace at the center.

A custom Keith Haring car. The museum inside the Olympic Park had a Keith Haring exhibition and to commemorate it they had limited edition vehicles.

A view of the city from the Olympic Park. The part of the city that I am staying in is super clean and really nice.

A sculpture with neon lights all over it. I think is Flav-a-Flav in the future.

A street view of an intersection with the elevated subway.

An indoor amusement park. LOTTE WORLD is kind of like a knock- off of Disneyworld, but indoors. The mascots are two Raccoons that look like Minnie and Mickey mouse. Full of noisy children. LOTTE WORLD is not just an amusement park but also a HUGE department store full of expensive designer clothing, a huge market and basically a huge mall.

Lotte World even had its own Toys r Us with wicked cool cash registers.


The mall even had Phantom of the Opera. I was shocked when I was in the food court to hear the musical, and then I saw posters advertising it. Wicked cool!

It may be blurry but can you all see that? Yep, its a Starcraft tournament aired on television. There are ads for Starcraft 2 everywhere!

Even Korea has Pochi Sweat. Liquids were much needed on this trip. Its soooooo humid. The cicadas were so loud you couldn't hear the traffic over them, now that is hot.

At the end of the day we decided to try and venture out to the downtown area on the Subway. It was no easy task navigating but we managed to get there and back. The subway cars were so nice and roomy and air conditioned.... and clean. I almost thought this city was spotless until we landed downtown. Then it started to smell more like a city. :P Either way I had a lot of fun so far. :D

Hope to show you all more soon,

~Val~