If it's Good for the Seoul: Seoul with your Soul Mate

The month of January, school was out

All that time off, I'd be bored. No doubt.

Fortunately enough for me

Someone was flying o'er the sea.

For 4 whole weeks, we were together

We lived in Seoul, survived the weather.

It was chilly, but who could tell?

We were eating too much food and living too well.

We even made it out of our Jamsil bubble

All the way to Busan, without too much trouble.

So with this post, I've done my best

To tell you 'bout the break that I spent with my guest.

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Blog post contents

Read what you want.

Skip what you don't!

1. Seeing Korea again for the 1st time

2. Baby moves to the big city

3. ~~Man's~~ Coffee's best friend?

4. If these walls could talk: The Palace

5. Something smells fishy.

6. World sports indoctrination

7. Busan with your Boo.

8. War and peace, but mostly war.

9. Smorgasbord of photos

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1. Seeing Korea again for the 1st time

With the first semester having come to a close

Feeling I knew Korean culture and was in the knowz

I couldn't wait to show Bryan around

My neck of the woods, my Korean hometown.

But when he arrived, I soon came to see

I was learning just as much as he

(so awkward, but had to make it rhyme...you know how that goes)

I showed him everything I'd come to know

And in doing got a fresh view o' Korea, yo

(again with the tacky rhyming. It seems I'm losing the charm.)

I saw my town and all the little bits

of everyday culture, all the peaks all the pits.

Thanks to my guest I got the prize

of seeing the world through his first-timer eyes.

Starting with Cheonan's best kept secret: The Sominator Bakery.

On my last day of work (after which we'd be heading straight to Seoul), I receive a message from Bryan that starts off, "URGENT PLEASE READ." Did he get lost in the city and can't ask for directions? Is he sick but doesn't know how to ask for a doctor? It could have been anything. I prepared myself for what came next. "Please meet me at the bakery after school for a final bread."

(In his defense: the bread really is that good.)

This coal-black pastry is quite amazing. While it doesn't look like much, it's certainly one of my favorites. It's sweet, soft, and an experience all its own. What, you may ask, gives it the black color? Squid ink.

What's even better is that they've got small-cut samples. For the first month or so, I would pretend I'd somehow forgotten how the breads tastes. So I'd walk around the samples like it was my first time there, nodding my head as I carefully sampled each one with an expression of surprise. But I've long since given that up. The place is way too small and I'm way too foreign for that to work. The jig is up. They all know how many times a week I indulge. It's a little embarrassing but now that I only have 3 months left...#YOLO.

Bryan's first bibimbap! #LoveAtFirstSight

His first Kimbap. #LoveAtFirstBite

Our temporary dining room. Seeing as our hotel didn't have a kitchen, we ate almost every meal at the Kimbap Heaven. It's a 24/7 joint that's got great food for really cheap. It was a one-way ticket for Bryan to learn about real Korean cuisine.

First Korean barbecue. The couple sitting next to us wanted to show us a warm welcome to Korean culture, so they paid for our meal. Unreal.

Bryan learns about bowing. #NervousLaughter

2. Baby moves to the big city

We were able to rent an Airbnb apartment is Jamsil, a neighborhood is Seoul that's famous for Lotte World, shopping, the famous baseball stadium, and allegedly sink holes? Not really sure if the last one if true.

No, there were not three people in this bed. But our host did set it up this way, which we found to be an interesting arrangement. That's my alpaca blanket from Ecuador!!

Burning the Año Viejo for New Year's Eve.

Celebrating Ecuador style.

Out with the old, in with the new.

What this picture doesn't tell you is that that burdock root that I tried to cook was so salty that it left our poor lips tingling. Emily commits a cooking flub-up. Eh, what else is new?

The Lotte World Department Store complex is located in Jamsil, right near where we were staying.

This place is so big. If you walk long enough, you'll end up at the Trevi Fountain in Rome. But really, this is actually a photo from Jamsil. This is in the SUBWAY. The subway. When I think of subways in the U.S., I think dirty, sketchy, and dark. In Korea, you'll find whole department store, underground shopping, food courts, and Trevi Fountain replicas. This was definitely one of those double take moments that catch you off guard after a long day of shopping.

This is the Lotte World Department Store. It's HUGE. And this is only one part of the complex. It's got a lot of high-end stuff. We found a coat for $3,000. The priciness of it all was actually really good for our wallets. Because we couldn't buy anything.

There's an art gallery inside the mall. At first glance, you might mistake this for a groovy plesh lounge chair. But it's pure wood, pieced together by shaved chunks of tree trunk. I think it still counts as groovy.

Some of my favorite pieces from the exhibit...

This is the 6 Star hotel that the Lotte company is building right beside the mall. It's ginormous and I'm scared to count how many pictures Bryan actually ended up taking of this. We probably have more snapshots of this building from different angles and different lighting than we do of ourselves. It is pretty awesome, but I'm sure Bryan can tell you more about its structure. Every time we left the apartment for the day and it came into view, he would remind me to check it out. ㅋㅋㅋ

3. ~~Man's~~ Coffee's best friend?

My 7 yr. old host sister just learned the English phrase "Do you like..." So she asks me questions like, "Do you like banana? Do you like skirts? Then you must like banana skirts." Keeping with that logic: A lot of people like dogs and a lot of people like coffee. So a lot of people must like dogs cafes, right? Right. Dog Cafes. They're a thing in Seoul. But they're certainly not the only novel kind of theme cafe in South Korea. Rather Seoul is quite the cornucopia of themed cafes. To name a few, there are cat cafes, dress cafes (where you get to pick out a princess dress to use for the hour while you have tea or coffee), camping cafes (where you sit inside tents while the speakers play nature's music instead of Kpop), sheep cafes (which is exactly what it sounds like), Victorian cafe (where you get to dress up in victorian clothes and pretend it's 19th century Britain)...etc.

We only ended up doing the dog cafe.

I LOVE the idea of pets. But I'm actually quite skiddish around even the smallest, more innocuous looking puppies. And they can smell my fear. So, for the first 45 minutes at the dog cafe, we were sitting alone on the floor feeling desperate. Like lone freshman scrambling to find a seat in the cafeteria. It was pretty lame. But finally we warmed up to each other and we got some puppy lovin. Perhaps a little too much, actually. At one point, we noticed that two dogs were well...ehm...doggy style...err...anyways, we laughed pretty hard until we realized they were doing it on top of my scarf.

Natural puppy Ugg boots.

PTFO

In Korea, FDA stands for Food + Dogs = Alright

4. If these walls could talk...

They actually wouldn't say much. Almost everything was burned to the ground during the 16th century Imjin War when the Japanese invaded Korea. It was almost fully restored in the 19th century only to be destroyed again in the 20th century during the Japanese occupation.

This is Gyeongbokgung Palace in the heart of downtown Seoul. It was the main royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty. Originally built in 1395,

Not sure how I feel about this guard's outfit...

Also interestingly, I heard the palace guards are actually trained soldiers. That made it all seem a little more authentic until I realized they were wearing foundation and paste-on mustaches.

The palace grounds were once the personal residence of the king in addition to being home to the government.

This is the changing of the guards. I've seen the one at the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier in Washington D.C. and rembmer it being being very solemn, precise, and serious. This paled in comparison. It was essentially a little dance recital. And the poor guards took turns bumping into one another as they mixed up the choreography.

#SecondHandEmbarrassment

They've created a life-size replica of the what you everyday Korean town looked like in the 1960s. (At least that's what I think the decade of choice was. Don't quote me on that).

A poster for the King and I. You'll see there are 3 words here: King and I. While the second two (i.e. and I) are written in Korean, that first one meaning king is actually written in Hanja (meaning it's a written Chinese character that's been incorporated into the Korean writing system).

I don't know why, but I just adore those miniature balcony-veranda thingies.

I think he'd have a permanent bruise on his head if he lived here.

5. Something smells fishy: COEX Aquarium

Random hanok house display. I'm not sure how it fits into the greater scheme of things at an aquarium, but it made for a nice picture.

Random circus mirrors

Places you wouldn't expect to find fish...

What do you mean big lips aren't in?

These big ass crabs gave me the willies.

That's a big penguin.

I think this was my first manatee sighting. Not many people know this about me, but I used to be very into manatees. So much so that not only did I read books about them, but I had (okay, have) manatee earrings.

The Pittsburgh Aquarium has one of these, but this one was especially cool because it had one of those people movers that you find in airports. There were big tortoises and sharks, fat fish, and coral. Really neat.

This was what snorkeling in Thailand was like. I would be swimming through schools of fish this dense, yet never once did even one of them brush up against me. It was almost like I had a force field around me, and I was pretty happy about that because when I saw the first swarm of them I knew in my gut I wouldn't enjoy feeling slimy scaly fins flapping all over my body.

Though I unfortunately didn't take a picture of our experience with it, the aquarium features a Dr. Fish exhibit. Dr. Fish is a popular spa treatment that involves immersing the desired body part (generally legs or hands or even your whole body) into these fish infested waters. The fishies feed off your dead skin and act as a natural exfoliator. I was pretty squeamish at first, but once I saw 4 year olds doing it, I gave in and realized the small pekkish nibbling does no more than tickle. I actually saw on the street in Thailand. People just hanging out with their legs in a tub of dead-skin-eating fish.

6. World sports indoctrination

Olympic Park in Seoul

Turns out they've got really cool artwork scattered all over the place.

The lonely tree

Forgot to take off my pollution mask.

Photo opp ruined.

Seoul World Cup Stadium

Creative advertisements for the Korean World Cup. Each hosting province made their own ad that blended their cultural heritage and that year's World Cup symbol.

Play strategies with Emily

Busan World Cup Stadium

I made Bryan do this because I thought it'd look like he was dribbling. #Nailed it.

Made it to the field! Covered with tarp, but who noticed. The stadum was actually closed this day, but I talked with the security guard, who was so so nice, and he showed us around. He kept noting how happy it made him that I'd learned his language and his culture. It was a good day for all of us. :)

8. Busan with your Boo.

해동 용궁사

(Haedong Yonggungsa Temple)

Most Buddhist temples in South Korea are located in the mountains, as the Buddhist creed is based upon the belief that the surrounding mountains provide natural protection from evil. The fact that the 해동 용궁사 temple is along the beach makes it very unique.

This is the interior of one temple at the Haedong Yonggungsa temple complex.

Selfie stick? Yep, we got one.

But it looks like we're not the only ones.

This statue is at the entrance of the temple. If I had my way, it'd be at the entrance to my garden. Oh well, a girl can dream...

With our Chinese zodiac

animals out in front of the temple.

1990 = The Horse, 1991 = The Ram

The bamboo canopy stairwell leading

down to the temple grounds.

Without the mountains to protect them...

looks like they amped up the angry guardage.

Am I the only one who thinks this temple guard picked the wrong profession? #That 10 pack though

Why are all Buddhas are fat? Is it because they spend all day meditating? Post if you know.

Also not sure what the pigs represent. At the very lease, they're cute and funny. But when googling "Pig and Buddhism" I continued to find reference to the Three Poisons - these being ignorance, attachment, and aversion. These are all considered to be the causes for suffering. These are represented by a pig, a bird, and a snake. Not sure if there's a connection there, but that's as far as I got.

범어사: Beomeosa Temple