nothing to prove

seoul you later

Another weekend, a few more stamps in the passport and a chaotic 36 hours in Seoul. This time I was traveling with Nuria and Kristi, who are also teaching in the Tsubame-Sanjo area. After teaching on Friday we connected up in Sanjo before heading to the airport together. The flight from Niigata to Seoul was only a couple hours but once we got there it turned out that bus ride to our hotel, after dropping all the other passengers off, was almost longer than we were in the air.

Seeing as we were pretty exhausted from travel and speaking no Korean we trekked around the corner of our hotel and found a nice little Korean restaurant. Having no clue what the menu said, we pointed at a picture that looked decent and thought might be enough for three people. Little did we know that we would end up with a six course meal of various Korean food, I still could not tell you exactly what we had. It started out with lettuce rolls, followed by kimuchi and seaweed soup. Then there was the frying pan filled with vegetables, meat and eventually noodles. The meal was finished off with some sort of fried rice. Keep in mind that we didn't know how to do or make anything so the staff was constantly coming over to cook or show us how to eat our food. We crashed early that night from eating too much food and we had to be up at the crack of dawn.


6:30 rolled around the following morning and it was time to get ready for the day. We had to meet our tour guide for the DMZ (DeMilitarized Zone) downstairs a little while later for the hour drive out there. The 3rd tunnel area we visited was only a little over 50 km away from Seoul, which is why when the tunnel was discovered it was such a shock that the North Koreans had managed to dig so close the capital. It was here that we got to take a little adventure down the third tunnel, helmets and all. They told us no cameras which was disappointing because we were the only ones down there for a while and wanted some pictures. This tunnel was obviously Kristi's size because Nuria and I, mainly me, kept bumping our heads on the ceiling. Admittedly our tour guide was absolutely crazy but she managed to get us into everything first so we didn't have to view anything in a crowd or wait in line.

Included in the tour was a visit Dorasan Station which, in case you didn't know, is the new train station they built for when the reunification of the Korea's happens and is another stamp in the passport. From what I gathered, only a very select few people can actually use the trains bound for North Korea and that is only after a strict screening process. It was interesting to witness all the various propaganda while we were there because they made it seem that the end to the war was on the horizon. Then you see the overwhelming military presence outside and it serves as a reminder that peace is still a ways away. By the time noon came we were all ready to get out of there and it made me really happy we only did a half day tour. Oddly enough we were in a very goofy mood that day and are probably lucky that we didn't get either kidnapped or kicked out.


Seoul has an abundance of foreign food chains, more so than Tokyo or Osaka, so we couldn't resist having some good Western food. After the tour we couldn't resist stopping at the closest American restaurant which happened to be Outback Steakhouse and it was amazing to have a big juicy steak. Afterwards I had to run back to the hotel for Gavin's number so we could connect up later in the evening. Then I met back up with the girls at one of the famous temples in Seoul, that's name escapes me at the moment because of how long and difficult it is to pronounce. Before kicking off the activities for the night, we managed to get a glance at the South gate which is famous for being one of the last remaining parts of the wall that used to be around the city before the Japanese destroyed it. Luckily the weather men were wrong and all day we had some decent weather to take pictures, get lost and play around Seoul.






Earlier I had called Gavin to arrange the plans for the night and we all met up with him for dinner. We went to a Nepalese restaurant where beer, nan and curry were found in plenty. After I stopped my nose from running we decided to check out the night life in Seoul and found this bar that Gavin had been to before. Once we got some beers I realized that it seemed like I was at Sal's again. The music coupled with the people dancing brought me back to last year, granted I haven't heard a mix of music like that in a long time but still. Jokingly Gavin mentioned homo hill, which is the gay bar district, and so I suggested we all go check it out. It turned out to literally be a hill with a bunch of gay bars and was surprisingly a great time. Some of Gavin's friends were there and mentioned going to a nearby dance club. I was lucky because the guy I was flirting with ended up being able to get me in for free. On top of that we got to hang out in the VIP room and had free drinks the rest of the night. When it was all said and done I ended up stumbling back into our hotel room at around 5 am, just in time to get a little sleep before having to leave the next morning.


Our final morning in Seoul was slightly painful because our tour guide took us to a mandatory little shop that specialized in kimuchi. If being up that early after a late night wasn't painful enough, that store made it even worse by making us eat every kind of kimuchi that store had in stock. Then they decided that it would be a good idea to stalk the three of us and try to convince us to buy everything in the store, which before that I had actually considered buying something. Luckily we got out of there extremely fast, with no signs of remorse for not making a purchase, and headed to the airport. For some reason, Kristi and I were really craving Burger King, probably because I have yet to see one in Japan, and sure enough we found one after passing through security. One of the themes for the trip seemed to be "eat until you want to pass out" and Burger King proved to not be an exception. It just made the flight back to Niigata that much more satisfying. Once we arrived home it was one of the only times I have returned to Niigata to find the weather more beautiful than that place I came from. It seems that Spring had come to Niigata while we gone.

posted by Aaron @ 3:56 AM