Discovering Seoul

I have to be honest. When we first moved to Guam, I knew I wanted to travel as much as possible, but there weren't very many Asian countries high on my wish list of places to see. For whatever reason, Asia never really interested me much, probably because I didn't know that much about it. Or it didn't interest me as much as, say, Europe, or Central America. Fast forward one year and five Asian countries later, and I'm finally starting to get it. It's amazing to see how different each country is from the next. Korea was no exception. Last week six girlfriends and I traveled from Guam and Japan to South Korea for five days of touring and shopping.

Korea was a great destination for a group trip like this. It was relatively easy to get to. We had access to the Dragon Hill Lodge, a very affordable and nice hotel on a U.S. Army base right in Seoul proper. Not to mention, Seoul had a lovely variety of things to do and see... everything from museums to markets to palaces to... war zones! Everything you'd want in a tour destination, really.

The only down side to traveling with a bigger group is the variety of logistics that emerge. This trip began as an idea when my friend Mary and her daughter Annika (right) were visiting us in Guam after the Japan tsunami in March. We both talked about how much we wanted to go to Korea, so we tossed out the idea, "Hey, let's go in September when both our guys are gone." We both really wanted to go to the DMZ (more on that later). A week before the trip when we were booking the tour, we discovered that due to the fact that it's a war zone, kids are not allowed on the tour (okay, this rule kind of makes sense). But it meant that in order for Mary to get to go, someone would need to stay back with Annika that day. I was more than happy to so she could get a chance to go, but it meant that Mary and I didn't have as much time to hang out. On the other hand, I got some serious bonus time with Annika. "Miss Jen" (who you met during my Thailand/Hong Kong travels) and I started out our trip by taking her to Children's Grand Park, a garden and zoo. Definitely not my usual travel stop, but a nice change of pace!

If everything is bigger in Texas, then it must be said that everything is cuter in Korea. No, seriously. Everything from the icons in the bathrooms to laundry clips in the drug store to this here butterfly made of flowers... everything is so stinkin cute! In addition, Mary was explaining that Asian cities tend to go over the top in creating fun things for kids. Seoul was no exception, as this was just one of two free zoos (and this was supposedly the smaller one).

Annika had a great time looking at all of the monkeys, tigers, and foxes at the zoo. Miss Jen and I had a great time sipping smoothies and strolling around in the perfect weather. In my top three list of favorite things about Seoul was our luck with the incredible temperatures for the week we were there. Seriously guys, it was 75 and sunny four days in a row... and at night it was chilly enough to merit light jackets and (get this) scarves! Apparently the week before it had been hot and rainy (sounds familiar), so we must have just hit it just right.

We left the park and found this super cute street full of restaurants, bars & cafes. We were really close to the University of Seoul, so I'm guessing that's why nothing on this street was open even as of 11a.m. Looked like they were still cleaning up from the night before. I guess college students are the same everywhere.

We stumbled upon what must have been the equivalent of a dollar store... but better because it's in Korea... so everything was cute! Almost everything in the store was 1,000 won, which, on that particular day, converted to about 91 cents :) Jen and I stocked up on journals, stationary, craft supplies, stickers, pens, and all other basic necessities. This is the type of stuff that is really expensive on Guam and not NEARLY as cute. In a word... jackpot!


After having such a whirlwind trip to Thailand and Hong Kong, I was fully intending to go at a slower pace this trip, so it would hopefully not take an entire week to recover from like last time. So the fact that a two year-old's day includes naptime was right up my alley. We went back to the hotel for lunch and sleep and to wait for the girls to get back from their tour. Due to a glitch with the travel desk (the first of many), the tour got back three hours later than they told us, so Jen and I peaced out and headed to the North Seoul Skytower for sunset views. (And yes, we brought Annika with us... stroller and all up the steepest hill I have ever seen)

Sunset over Seoul 

We met up with Mary and jetted off to a neighborhood called Myeong Dong, aka the shopping district! If there's one thing Koreans love to do, it's shop, as was evident based on the insane amount of people who were out shopping at 10pm... and 10am the next morning... and 3pm the next afternoon. Okay, so we were not shy about hanging out in the shopping area, but it was pretty impressive that it was always so busy. Great to pop into my favorites, like H&M, Mango, and of course, Zara! Would have been even better if they weren't packed full of fall and winter clothes... completely worthless in my neck of the woods. Mary was in a good spot, though. The Japanese yen to dollar conversion has been terrible in recent months, so by that standard Korea was full of bargains. 

Day 2: Some people slept in, while others (Jen, Bligh & I) headed off to some museums. We started at the National History Museum of Korea, which was essentially an art & artifact museum. Which in Asia essentially breaks down to pottery and buddha statues (which, let's be honest, all start to look the same!). There was one good find, though... the room full of etched calligraphy. I loved what the description had to say about calligraphy, which many of you know is one of my hobbies.
Calligraphy is the art of fine handwriting by which the artist expresses his or her inner state by the rendering of lines and forms. In Korea, calligraphy has long been one of the major arts that a true intellectual should master. To be a good calligrapher required in-depth knowledge about a wide range of areas such as literature, art, history, and philosophy, since spiritual depth was prized as as well as artistic beauty... In Korea, calligraphy was developed as the art of "creating something new from the old law. Calligraphy as an art aimed at future progress based on what was great in the past. Today's calligraphy lovers in Korea believe that this art form should continue to play a leading role in the creation of the "new." In other words, calligraphy is even more awesome than I thought.

Next we cabbed it (cabs are super cheap!) to the Korean War History Museum, of which two of the three floors are dedicated to the Korean War. I was excited to go to this museum ahead of going to the DMZ so I could learn more about the war. I have done a lot of reading about the war itself and how it ended, but never really had a great understanding of how the war started. Did China really just surprise attack South Korea in order to gain the peninsula? Unfortunately the room with the exhibits showing the lead-in to the war was under renovation, so we didn't get those answers just yet. A great museum, though, and well worth the time.
A lot of the exhibit space was used to recreate scenes from the various aspects of the war, creating a three-dimensional visual experience instead of using just words and photographs. They also had a huge section of the third floor dedicated to the suffering of refugees and the stories of survival and perseverance that helped the South Koreans recover into the strong-willed, independent, thriving nation it is today. Just walking around Seoul and you can't help but feel how capitalism, political independence, and, essentially, freedom have driven this society to be the clean, safe, productive, efficient society it is today.

Mary's picture of Seoul's beautiful buildings... everything looks so new and fancy!

After our morning museum (and shopping) tour, Jen and I joined the rest of the group and all six of us went on a cultural insights tour to Changdeokgung Palace and several popular markets we had yet to hit. It was great to finally have the group all together... until they put us in separate vehicles. At least we were all together at the palace :)

The great part about being on a tour is that you actually learn about what you are looking at. We had the sweetest tour guide who spoke excellent English and even came armed with a box of traditional Korean treats. She told us quite a bit about the palace. One of the things I remember is that each of the rooftops of the various palace buildings on the complex have these little critters on the corners. Apparently the more critters lined up, the more important the building was. For example, the building above is the main palace where the king would conduct official duties. It had the most number of critters. The building to the right was the king's office, so it did not have as many critters. Interestingly, the house the king built for one of his concubines only had one critter.

Chinese letters over the doorways of the palace

We also learned about the Korean language, which I found fascinating. Being in Thailand, Japan, China, and now Korea, you see all these different pictorial alphabets and wonder... how did these come to be?? They are so similar yet so different. Tower of Babel? Evolution over millions of years? Something in between? Our tour guide said that the Korean writing system (called hangul) was actually invented in the 1400s, by a king, Sejong the Great, who wanted language to be more accessible to the common person than difficult hanja, which was based on Chinese characters. The language took about 200 years to catch on because Chinese had such a reputation for being the language of nobles, dignitaries, etc. But hangul is now the script of the modern Korean language.

Someone wants treats from my bag and is using hugs to win me over... smart girl :)

 If you're ever in Seoul, head to Insadong, 

the cutest street full of handicrafts, teas, pottery, and yummy treats.

You have my permission to skip Naedemong Market, a wholesale market that is absolutely ginormous, sells everything you can imagine, and yet it's somehow all junk. I couldn't find a single thing worth buying! No question the markets in Asia all start looking the same after a while.

We capped off our our second day in Seoul with dinner at a Greek restaurant. I know this sounds ridiculous, but again, one of the great things about being off Guam is having more food choices. Greek food is just something we don't have (at least not a good version of), so this place, Santorini, right in Itaewon in walking distance from our hotel, was so refreshing and delicious. And let's be honest, Korea isn't exactly known for its savory cuisine or rich, enticing ingredients (Exhibit A: Kimchi). More on that later. I went to sleep on this second night excited about the day ahead... my turn to head to the DMZ, the ultimate reason for our trip to Seoul, and one of the spots on my Asia travel wish list.