Day two was the royal palace, which happened to fall on a free day, so it was somewhat busy. Just like in Japan people like to dress up in the traditional Korean Hannam? Outfits. Big puffy ankle length skirts for the women and funny top hats for the men. Always fun to see the added flair. I also signed up for the paid guided tour of the gardens, which wasn’t exactly stunning as everything is dead, but at least the thin layer of snow on the ground added a certain tranquility to the scenery. There was a guy who was about 6’6” who stuck out like a sore thumb also doing the tour solo, so I got to talking to him for a bit, Australian guy who played college basketball in the states. We were heading in different directions after the tour, but we agreed to meet up for dinner at that Korean BBQ place in Itaewon that evening. I was really glad to have a friend for the KBBQ!
But first I wanted to get to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, a huge futuristic looking structure built by a famous architect named Zara Hadid. It was a fascinating place, when you’re inside you wind your way up through these curving all white minimalist hallways that take you past various free art exhibits. The stairwells were super trippy as well. Fun place to take photos. On the outside the dull grey looking spaceship has lights built into it and turns all sorts of purple and green shades after the sun goes down. My fingers were completely numb, but I had a lot fun running around the outside and finding interesting angles to take photos. And I wasn’t the only one, it’s a popular spot for budding architecture photographers! I think the most interesting thing on the whole Seoul trip was the diverse and eclectic architecture in the city.
And then it was off to some K-BBQ. The place we went was really foreigner friendly and they actually have all these servers come around and grill the meat for you and then place it off to the side of the grill so you don’t have to do anything but focus on eating, drinking, eating. The meat is pretty thin, so we ended up ordering a lot! We probably should have filled up more on all the small banchan plates they serve with the meal, oh well! Korean BBQ checked off the to-do list. We hopped around Itaewon bars a bit and called it a night.
Next day I was off to the National Museum, which is a huge rectangular structure that looks kinda odd, like a Soviet design. The whole museum was completely free. In Korea lots of museums and places of interest are free or almost free ($1-2). A nice place to kill a few hours given how cold it was outside.
From there I took the metro over to Hongdae, which is known for it’s younger crowds, cutesy type shops, karaoke cafes, and pet cafes. I stopped in two of the pet cafes just to see what they’re like. The first one wasn’t really a ‘cafe’ at all, but they did have three foxes and raccoon on the first floor, and some meerkats and a kangaroo on the second floor. It’s a combination of cute and somewhat depressing. The foxes seemed fine, they let them out of their enclosure to run around, while the raccoon was constantly pacing around his. The meerkats seemed fine running around their area, while the kangaroo mostly just sat there and didn’t do anything. I didn’t feel like waiting 20 minutes to be able sit in the meerkat area, so I mostly just hung out with the foxes downstairs. They mostly don’t pay much attentions to the humans unless you have some snacks to give them. I didn’t stay long, not really my cup of tea.
I did go to one other place that was an actual coffeeshop that had a sheep pen outside. This one was more to my liking. You could relax and enjoy your drink and if you wanted you could go hang out with the sheep for a little bit. No touching or feeding them. They just kind of stare at you and that’s about it!
The last day it was one more museum, which had a free section of historical artifacts and paintings, plus a contemporary art section which you had to pay for. I did both. As usual the contemporary art stuff is very hit or miss, but there were a few exhibits I particularly enjoyed! My favorite was a machine that shot smoke rings at random intervals across the room, with weird electronic music and a huge LCD screen in the background, and the rings would terminate on a bunch of spikes sticking out from the wall. Do I know the deeper meaning of this exhibit? Absolutely not. But was it visually interesting and oddly satisfying to watch? Yes, definitely.
The rest of the afternoon was going to the riverwalk, which was freezing cold btw, and also had another Christmas tree. Then eating streetfood, and wandering through what I think might be the main downtown section. The way Seoul is set up is pretty spread out, there’s three different ‘downtown’ sections with lots of cool buildings and skyscrapers, it’s not like Chicago with all of them clumped together in one spot. But honestly I loved the architecture in Seoul. It was way more varied and eclectic than I was expecting! And then I ate even more streetfood for dinner at Myeongdong Plaza, which was jammed with people.
To finish off the night I thought I’d head up to Seoul Tower, but it turned out that the wait to actually get up to the top was 90 minutes and I wasn’t that committed. The view from the base of the tower was on top of a big hill, so the views were already pretty decent. Then when I was walking down I couldn’t figure out if there was a direct walking trail towards Itaewon, so I asked a pair of ladies who appeared to be night hikers, ie they were power walking in stride wearing athletic gear, and they decided to guide me on the correct path down the hill! So that was kinda fun. It was a bit treacherous as everything still had a bit of snow cover, so you had to watch your step, and they were always looking back to make sure I didn’t fall. We got down to street level and they pointed me in the right direction and continued walking/hiking to wherever they fancied!
That was an endearing way to end the Korean trip, following these 50-something hiker ladies down the hill! I really did enjoy interacting with Korean people overall. I was thinking to myself if I had to choose a place to live between Korea and Japan, I think I’d choose Korea. Despite the fact that Japan is nicer, cleaner, better run, and probably has better food. As purely a tourist I’d choose Japan. But the easiness of interaction with people in Korea is much more easy-going and genuine.