Day 48: Seoul, South Korea

Well, today is our 2nd wedding anniversary, so happy anniversary to us! It ended up being the most random and fun day ever so hopefully that's a good omen...

We got up late, did some Skyping with home, and then set off to find food in an area called Itaewon, which is known for being sort of foreigner dominated because it's near the US army base. We thought we had found a Korean place for lunch based on the name, but it turned out to serve Western food, which was fine. Here is a photo of the main street of Itaewon (and yes I went into the Starbucks - they make a mean Iced Cafe Latte here!).




From Itaewon, we walked to the War Memorial Museum which was about a 15-minute walk. All around the outside of the museum are tanks, planes, helicopters and other war-related vehicles and equipment. Here is Frank in front of an anti-aircraft gun.




The museum and its grounds were massive, with tons of school groups visiting.




We went through an elaborate exhibit which gave an (undoubtedly a bit biased) history of the Korean War and the events leading up to it. Biases aside, we both learned a lot, starting with the fact that the original division of the country was a result of the US not wanting the Soviet Union to occupy the whole country after the war, thereby creating a division at the 38th parallel.

For more information on the conflict, here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

After all the war education we could handle, we walked to the Namdaemun Market, which is a "rabbit warren" (as my dad would say) of shops selling all kinds of food, clothing, accessories and miscellaneous souvenirs.




We wandered through for a while, half the time just trying to figure out what was being sold. This is some sort of root, but the fact that it's sold in jars like this makes it seem like something belonging in a laboratory.




Near the market was Namsan Park which has a cable car up to the Seoul Tower. Here is a view from the top of the mountain, near the base of the Tower. In front is some sort of pagoda/gazebo structure where people were resting and escaping the sun.




We took an elevator to the top of the Seoul Tower, where people have attached various locks and heart-shaped plastic keychains inscribed with messages. All possible surfaces were covered with the hearts, locks and messages. The locks and hearts were sold in the gift shop, in a section called "Love Tower", but we opted not to add our own.




Here is a view down the path of the cable car.




Here is a view from inside the tower:




We then took the subway back to the area where our hotel is (Sinchon) and wandered around the nearby streets until we found a place to have Korean BBQ. There were only about 6 tables in the whole restaurant - all of them occupied by Korean people, which we felt to be a good sign of the food quality - and there was no menu in English. We ordered by pointing at what the next table was eating, which worked well. When the woman serving us wasn't satisfied with the way we were preparing the lettuce wraps, she demonstrated by making one properly and then proceeded to feed it to Frank without letting him take it from her hand. Frank's vote was that the woman knew what she was talking about, so we followed her lead on all further wrap preparations. However, the woman seemed to have taken a liking to feeding Frank and came back to make another bite for him which she also insisted on feeding him herself. Frank didn't seem to mind.

I looked up how to say "It was delicious" in Korean in the guide book Britt had lent us and managed to make myself understood as we left, which seemed to make the lady very happy. Here is a photo of the restaurant and Frank paying our new friend.



After dinner we decided that a visit to Seoul would not be complete without going to a "bang", which means "room". There are PC bangs, with computer cubicles set up so people can come play computer games (mostly World of Warcraft, apparently) and DVD bangs where you can rent a room to watch a movie. These are particularly popular with Korean couples as they all live at home until they get married.

We decided a DVD bang would be an appropriately festive way to celebrate our anniversary, we so went into the first one we came across (and they are everywhere). The front area looks like a video store and then there are rooms in the back, similar to the private karaoke places in NYC. (The noraebangs (literally song rooms) are very popular in Korea too.) We asked the very nice guy working there for a Korean movie recommendation and he picked one out for us. It was called "Sunny" and was about a shy woman who joins a band in order to go to Vietnam to find her husband who is fighting in the Vietnam War. In addtion to learning that there were Korean troops fighting alongside the American troops during the war, we found the movie relatively entertaining and the fact that we were watching a Korean movie in a random DVD bang in Seoul hysterical.

Here is a photo of the movie, which was projected on a white wall, and a shot of Frank - holding the 1.6 liter plastic bottle of Cas beer we brought/snuck in with us - sitting on the very comfortable slanted built-in couch.






Here is Sinchon at night:




And here is me waiting for them to make us our chocolate/cinnamon crepe (which was fantastic) which is how we ended the night - wandering around Sinchon with a crepe. The perfect anniversary celebration day!



Tomorrow is our last full day in Seoul!

ILM