All over Seoul.... [part 1]

We started our weekend activities right away this weekend: on Friday night we planned to go to Seoul Cinema in Jongno-3-ga to see Death Proof. I finished work at 8:05, and I took the bus home to “save time,” although by the time one comes it’s taken about as long as if I had walked home. Anyway, so I changed and trundled down to the subway, Jongno-3-ga is only a few stops away, so I didn’t plan on it taking long, which was good, because I was cutting it close. I knew from the theatre’s website which exit I had to take, but from there the directions got a little muddled. It said to walk for 5 minutes in the direction of Jongno. The problem with these instructions is that I was already in Jongno (Jongno-3), and there are Jongno’s in both directions (Jongno-2, and Jongno-4). So I picked a direction and walked it. It said to walk for 5 minutes; I did for about 15, because I wanted to be sure I went far enough. And I sort of jogged, too. So I definitely would have gone too far, only it was the wrong direction. So I went back to the station, looked at the map (which didn’t help at all), and went out another exit. And the theatre was RIGHT there. Not 5 minutes away. So we were still on time, in the end, and the movie was amazing.

On Saturday, Bree Teacher (alias BBro) and I went to Hoehyeon to find the Namdaemun Market, one of approximately 10000 markets in the city, but this one is big, and famous or something. We browsed around for a while (we found nunchucks!), and soon we had lunch. We found a random place in the market and ordered 비빔밥 (bibimbap: rice, vegetables, with an egg on top) and 만두 (mandu: Chinese dumplings). The guy brought it over and then he tried to tell us “Eat with chopsticks!!”
As if we didn’t know how to use them. But then later he saw my awesome ‘stick technique, and he told me “Number one Korean chopstick” or some such. At one point he also spit on Bree Teacher, as the older Korean men are wont to do. He kept talking to us, asking us where we’re from and the like. I can understand Korean accents pretty well, when they speak in English, but for some reason Bree Teacher can’t as well. Conversely, I’m pretty much terrified to talk to a Korean person, even in English. So instead of answering his questions, I’d translate for Bree Teacher and she’d answer.

Then back to shopping! I was looking for a wallet, since the one I’ve had since about junior high wasn’t in the best state. I found one I liked in one of the million little shops in the market, and asked the price:
HIM: [whispering, for some reason] 45.
ME: Hmm. I’ll give you 10.
[…Yeah. I’m awesome at bargaining]
HIM: 35.
ME: 11.
HIM: 35.
ME: 10?
HIM: 35.
Me: Seeya!
So then we went to another place about 10 seconds down the road, and they had the same wallet for 23000 (which I bargained down to 20000). I’m SO good at finding bargains! So, whatever, that other guy. BBro bought a parasol, on account of she wants people to think she’s Korean, and they all carry them. I told her I didn’t think that would trick anyone, but she disagrees.

We somehow left the market while we were looking for something, and we saw one of the huge gates that surrounded the outside of the old/original city of Seoul (we think?) so we went over for a photo op. When we got over to it, though, there was some cool changing of the guard ceremony going on. All the guards had these big flamboyant outfits on, and they were either holding big dramatic flags, or playing drums. And looking tough. After it was over, they all went back through the gate and disappeared. We went back towards the street. When we got to the crosswalk, there were all the guards! Chilling, waiting to cross the street, all in their big get-ups. We walked across with them, and it felt like we were in some bizarre Korean parade.





We went back into Namdaemun Market and Naomi Teacher came to join us and we went for second lunch. Then we walked a bit, down to Myeong-dong, where they have... THE GAP!! The only one in the city! This is very exciting for me. Downside: the GAP in Korea goes up to a size 8. That’s the biggest size they make. And that’s a large here. Their size chart looked something like this:
XXS – Size 0
XS – Size 1-2
S – Size 3-4
M – Size 5-6
L – Size 7-8
All 3 of us (Me, Bree Teacher, and Naomi) are bigger than a size 8, so we didn’t buy anything. But still, it’s exciting that they have the GAP now. It just opened. Other delights in Myeong-dong: It’s home to the world’s biggest Starbucks! I think we saw it, but that we went to the one just down the road from it. They also have a store called Tommy Atkins. Does their logo look particularly familiar? Hmm…



Just as we were about to go underground into some sort of shopping thing, we saw this lady across the street ROCKING OUT to Korean hymns. Just standing on the street, singing her little heart out, and praising God (or whoever). They’re really religious in this part of the city. Agressively religious. We also saw a man with a sandwich board screaming into a megaphone about God. And a group of people with microphones singing and talking about God (a Korean Divine Nine, if you will). So we quickly got out of there, and Bree Teacher and I went towards Seoul Tower. We saw two students from my school (who later told me that Bree Teacher has “Yellow hair. Very big”). Then we went up about 100,000 stairs to the place that has the cable car (!!) up to the tower. For some reason, they built this tower in the middle of nowhere on a hill, and the only way up to it are by cable car, or a long hike up the side of the mountain. So clearly there was no debating our means of ascension.

So we wait, and wait and wait, and then we finally get to the cable car. There are 12 sets of foorprints where the people line up, which makes me think that the cable car safely holds 12 people.So we stand on those (we’re about fourth in line), and then they line up about 30 more people behind us. The cable car comes down the hill from the tower, and they let the people out, and then we all pile in. And yeah, it’s a pretty tight fit (at 400% capacity, you might expect it to be). The ride up the mountain was so cool. It had an amazing view of the city, and was just a really fun ride.

When we got to the top of the hill, we still had to go up a lot of stairs to get to the tower proper (couldn’t they have made the cable car go just a little further?). When we got inside, finally, we got tickets and then we had to wait for our number to come up to take an elevator to the top. While we waited, we admired some “junk art” from afar – we decided not to pay to go in, since we could pretty much see the whole exhibit from outside – and we got the world’s weirdest ice cream. It tastes like normal ice cream, and it’s cold. Only it’s stretchy. It’s incredibly bizarre, it has a texture like gum, or marshmallows, or something.

Our number finally came up, and we took the elevator up to the observation deck. Oh my, what a view. It was night at this point, but we could see ALL of Seoul. It’s quite a large city, we decided. The tower is 777 feet tall (1,574 feet above sea level!) so you can see the whole city. The lights at night are pretty intense. Especially the light that comes from the glow in the dark neon crosses that they have on top of churches (it would have helped to know that there approximately 40 million of these crosses: back in the day, before I knew this, my reference point for Motel Casting was a neon cross on top of an orange spire). We walked around the observation gallery (the third, I think – you need a reservation to get into the fourth). We went down to the second, which has some shops and things, and I bought a 3D Puzzle of the tower (!!) and we got our picture drawn by a machine. BBro has so much hair that it kept messing up on it, and it would have to go back and erase it.

We took the elevator back down (we rode that bitch all the way to the bottom, to quote my favorite ever convo between Brittany and Richie Cunningham), to browse the goings on that happen around the base of the tower. We were in a cool Tower-related stationery store, where some music caught our attention. We went outside to see a bunch of Native Americans, all done up with headdresses and all, playing some traditional music and dancing around (nothing says Korea to me more than Native Americans…). We stood and listened for a while, because, for some reason, one of their songs sounded like Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” so I sang along (“Ohh baby, baby, oh, my hips don’t lie and I’m starting to la la la” is about how far my grasp of the lyrics goes).

After this wonderful bizarrity, we went to a photo studio to have our picture taken “in front of the tower” (ie: Photoshopped into a photo of the tower). We did so, and I bought an awesome ball from the shop. We went outside again, and browsed a cart of toys that were for sale. When we started walking away, a woman RUNS over to me, “Did you pay? Did you pay!” Apparently, they sell exactly the same balls on her cart, and she thought I stole it. I felt bad. But the ball is awesome enough to make up for it. Then we went back down the stairs, waited in line, back down the cable car, and outside. We followed some Koreans, because we figured they knew the way out, but they led us into a creepy alley. It was completely terrifying. But we managed to escaped unscathed.

OR DID WE [cliffhanger]