You Seoul My Heart, Korea!
Anyoung haseyo! Although we’ve been in Tokyo, Japan, for a few days now I want to do a quick gush on my newfound love of Korea. When we were planning this trip I pushed Jason to add Korea to this list for a few reasons: kimchi, bibimbap, Korean BBQ, dumplings… More than I even realized I have a love affair with Korean foods.
I’ve been keeping you all updated on Facebook (sorry for those who don’t have it!) about the types of foods we’ve been eating and their prices. I’m still so impressed with what you get and how much you pay for it in Korea. The foods were fresh, top quality, and fun! Koreans eat kimchi with every meal, so for all the fermentation fans this is a real treat. Above is our one night out getting Korean BBQ. Finding the right place to eat can be difficult because English isn’t everywhere and there were an overwhelming amount of choices. We stayed in Myeong-Dong, a heavily Chinese tourist area, that was insanely busy! Finding this spot took us about an hour, but was so worth it. Here, it was all you can eat, and you started with pork belly and pork something else, plus tons of sides and fixing. If we wanted more meat all we had to do was ask. We also had bean sprouts cooking on the grill, along with an assortment of sides like kimchi (every meal!), cabbage, tofu, and a variety of sauces. We cooked the meal ourselves, using tongs and scissors to cut the meat. Cooking it yourself, and it being so self service, meant we got to just sit and eat and not be too distracted by wait staff “helping”. We didn’t talk much, just focused on the cooking process, and my GOD it was good! So good. My aunt Kathy was worried we should eat some bacon before we go, but this was like the best bacon money can buy. All this and it was $22 for the both of us. Korea doesn’t do tipping, so what you see is what you get for price. Amazing.
Koreans drink… often… and in quantities that would make even a drunk American squeamish. ” On average, South Koreans consume 14 shots of hard liquor a week, while Americans drink about three and Russians about six, according to Euromonitor statistics.” Korea also has the most alcoholics worldwide. Crazy! Even more crazy because, the bar culture in Seoul seemed, from my limited experience, not as important as it is in the US. Maybe it’s because we weren’t out late enough. Maybe it’s because we weren’t in the right places, but we didn’t see that many drunk people and we didn’t imbibe that much ourselves (save for the baseball game!). We did go to the Western district of Seoul, where you can find anything under the sun in terms of food and drink and a banging bar culture. We got one set of drinks, $6 Tallgrass 8 Bit pale ale’s from Kansas City, at a crazy beautiful bar called Fountain in Itaewon. They had free video games…. it was perfect! Also… Out of all the things (not people) I miss first, craft beer is basically the only thing thus far on my list. I miss craft beer so much already!!!
Pictured above is my adorable Mango beer at 3% alcohol (it’s basically soda, guys). Jason’s drinking a Max, a crappy Korean beer. Korean beer is pretty terrible. Soju is worse. Horribly worse. Soju is the national drink of Korea and there is a government mandate to ensure everyone has access to it, so the price is to be kept extremely low. No really, they do. This meant drinking and eating in Korea were both affordable (albeit done in far smaller quantities than we normally take part in back home).
Last food thing… cause I could seriously GO ON AND ON! We tried to get a dessert or treat every day, because why not! We were walking miles and miles each day and not eating a ton, just one or two meals per day really. These swiss cake roll style foods were so cute! Chocolate roll ups. They’re better with chocolate covering, but who cares. Koreans (and apparently the Japanese too!) really like waffles. I also adore waffles, yet I somehow haven’t eaten one. For shame on me!
Moving on! It’s not a solely foodie adventure, it’s just a mostly foodie adventure, so let’s talk about the other things I adored about Seoul. Such as their impeccably efficient and easy to navigate public transit system. I’ve been on the DC Metro (for years), the NY subway, the San Fran BART, Portland’s TriMet, Boston’s T, London’s Tube, Tokyo’s insane metro system, and several in Europe (plus Baltimore’s MTA, if that even counts) but none compares to how clean, efficient, and easy to navigate Seoul’s line is. That means in all the other English speaking places it’s not as easy to operate their metro system as it is in an Asian country that isn’t on many people’s bucket lists. Plus, it was really affordable at an average of $1.35 per one way trip. Put Seoul on your bucket list, people, it’s great.
At this point, we can move around Seoul easily, eat their awesome food, drink whatever and whenever (drinking in the street is 100% normal and not frowned upon) and now we’re ready to access their incredibly park system. Jason and I had perfect weather. No more than 81 during the day, no less than 65 at night, and never raining (OK, one morning it rained, but we braved it and then it was perfectly sunny all day long :). So, we played in parks! We played in the National Museum of Korea’s park and went to the museum (free, one of the biggest museum’s in Asia, and truly breath taking… seriously, add Seoul to your bucket list!). We played in a park that circumvented the river that had waterskiers and spiders and birds and snakes and friendly people saying hello to us and weeping willow trees galore! One of the prettiest parks I’ve ever been to in my life. Here it is, pictured above!
The last thing I’ll gush about from Seoul is baseball! You probably know that I’m a big O’s fan. This past year I went to one game per month because I knew I’d miss them so much. I’m not the smartest baseball fan, but I love going to the yard, experiencing the fun of friends and sport, and feeling at home in the park. As you know, baseball season is closing out and that goes for Asia too. They are also hugely into baseball (fun fact!) and Korea is no slouch when it comes to baseball fandom. We saw the Doosan Bears play the Samsung Lions. Doosan is a Korean shipping company. All the teams are overtly corporate sponsored. That doesn’t change the fact that this was one of the most fun games we’ve ever been to! The beer was cheap and available to be purchased and brought in from the outside (just put it in a cup). The corndog that Jason got me was one of the best I’ve ever had. We met Jimmy at the game, a New Yorker who went to Carnegie Melon in Pittsburgh and is more fluent in English than Korean. We talked to him the entire time! Then, as we were leaving, John from England starts chatting us up. He’s a huge American baseball fan (Cubs, specifically) and was staying in our neighborhood, so we rode the train home with him chatting the whole way about travels, sports, and everything else. An incredibly friendly and kind soul who was traveling on his own to Korea because, “People in Britain don’t really think to go to Korea.” but he knew differently.
Koreans take baseball so seriously that they have cheerleaders and a guy who directs chants. I still have the chants stuck in my head. The teams had official cheering sections and we were graciously put into the Doosan cheering section by the ticket attendant. The other side of the park had the away team’s cheering section, which had an equally excited group of people cheering on the Lions. In the picture, do you see that big group of people? That was the Lion’s cheering section. The teams would cheer on their side when they were at bat and then quiet down and let the other team’s section cheer them on while they batted. Opposite to what happens in American football, where you’re quiet during your team’s plays and loud during the opposing team’s plays. Cheers here included drums, whistles, chants, and loud LOUD music! The cheering section was on their feet nearly the entire game! I wish we could adopt some Korean style baseball over in the USA!
Overall, we had an amazing time in Korea. The people are beautiful (there are mirrors everywhere to make sure of this fact too and plastic surgery/medical tourism ads from the airport onward), the city is one of the safest on the planet (we didn’t once feel unsafe or sketched out), and the experience was great for an intro to Asia. Add Seoul to your bucket list. You will not regret it!
Here’s a few more pictures for your viewing pleasure!
