2/26 Day 1 in Seoul

2/26/2013: I slept in until around 8:30am on Tuesday. It took me around 4 hours to get from the Seoul Airport to my "guesthouse" the night before. There was a huge line at immigration, then I had to go through customs, get my luggage, get some Korean Won, and then figure out how to get to my guesthouse, which involved a 1hr train ride from the airport into Seoul station, and then two more trains to get to the right neighborhood. Upon exiting the subway station, I realized it was futile to try to find the place on my own, so I grabbed a cab and showed him the screenshot I'd taken of the guest house's website so he'd know the address. Sadly, that didn't help because his GPS didn't find the address. I'd taken screenshots of its location in google maps, too (I was too cheap to get an international smart phone so I've gotten into looking things up when I have internet and saving it with screenshots for later), so we managed to get close to the hostel's location but we couldn't find it. So the cab driver dropped me off nearby, and I wandered some alleys and found it pretty quickly, luckily. Sophia Guest House, recommended by Rosy, is a traditional Korean establishment. I'm not sure what features exactly are traditional, but it is a different place for sure. My room is about 8 feet long by 6 feet wide, with thin sliding doors to the hallway. The floor of my room is heated, and I sleep on just a thin mattress on the floor with a blanket. With the hot floor and tight space, it gets really warm. There's a shared bathroom, and then the hallway leads into a courtyard. There are rooms and other halls surrounding the courtyard.

In the morning, I cut across the courtyard to the breakfast room, which is free. Having already been scolded the night before for wearing my shoes inside, I was careful to take them off before entering the breakfast room. I put on some sandals before entering, and thought I was getting the hang of Korean customs, but was then scolded for wearing someone else's outdoor sandals inside. I thought they were meant for indoor use, but apparently they were just someone else's sandals. I sat through breakfast sitting between Koreans having a lively conversation and wished I knew Korean. At this point I had no idea what I was going to do during my time in Seoul, and the guest house didn't have any internet. As I was leaving the guest house, I luckily found a printout from the Lonely Planet guide for things to do in Seoul on a desk, so I went back to my room and studied up for a while. I decided I'd spend my day finding internet first, then go to Changdeokgung (a palace) and its secret garden. Luckily every other shop on the nearby street is a coffee shop with free WiFi, so I spent some time in there doing some more research on things to do in Seoul and Skyping with Ariel. Around 1pm I started making my way towards the palace (there are actually 5 different palace areas in Seoul), and came across a tourist information center, so I went inside. There were 2 very nice Korean ladies who gave me about 4 maps and a pastry and we talked for a while (one spoke decent English, the other knew only a few words). I asked about lunch recommendations and they told me to go to a tofu place, but it sounded like a real local place with no English, so I asked them what I should order and they wrote down instructions in Korean. Feeling a little intimidated, I half-jokingly asked if either of them wanted to go with me, and they laughed and said they had to work but they'd meet me at 5 if I wanted to meet them. I agreed to it, not knowing if they were serious, and headed straight to the palace.

There was an English tour at 2:30 from a cute Korean girl carrying a microphone and loudspeaker despite our group consisting of about 5 people. Her information was very fact-based and she didn't tell many interesting stories, but it was cool to see the different buildings and how the royal family lived, in her words, "in the olden days." She said there were 27 different kings in the major dynasty. The last Korean princess was forced to move to Japan at age 14 during the Japanese occupation of Korea, and then she was forced to marry a Japanese count. They had a child, but the child disappeared at some point and it's suspected that it was suicide. The princess had a mental breakdown, which caused the husband to divorce her. She lives back in Korea now I think. There were two princes, as well, but one died young, and the other became an architect in the US and married a white American girl, which upset the Koreans. The couple moved back to Korea, but they couldn't have children, and they eventually divorced. So apparently the royal lineage has come to an end.

The "palace tour" ended and the "secret garden" tour began soon after with a different tour guide that sounded like she had an American accent and sounded very fluent at first until I noticed she was using typical phrases out of context (like "as you can see" and "I'm sorry to say"). I talked to her towards the end of the tour and she was 7 months pregnant. I asked if she knew if it was a boy or girl yet, and she said that because boys were favored so much in the past (and I suppose infanticide and abortion of girls was prevalent as a result), the government does not allow doctors to tell expecting parents the gender of their child until it is born.

The secret garden tour was nice, although it would have been 100 times better if it was spring, summer, or fall. The secret garden was just a private wooded space for the king and his family. The space was massive, with enough room to go boar hunting and leopard and tiger hunting (I assume these animals were imported).

The tour ended around 4:55, so I hustled back towards the tofu place and got lucky and found it without too much hassle. I walked inside and one of the ladies was there, so I took off my shoes and put them back on when she told me I didn't need to do that unless we were sitting in the other section. The other lady joined us too, so it was me sitting across from two friendly 40-something year-old Korean ladies. I assume they were interested in practicing their English, and I was excited to eat a meal where I didn't have to order and worry about what I was getting. Just like in my previous Korean meal experiences, about 7 small dishes were served to us, which included kimchi, some seaweed, and other things. The ladies (I later got their names: Myung Lan and Eun-Huye) ordered some tofu dishes for all of us - a spicy dish and a non-spicy dish. I was nervous about the spicy dish, since Rosy's mom (Korean) kicked my ass with spicy food every time I visited in college. I was also nervous about using chopsticks in front of them because they were both sitting across from me watching my every move, and my hands were cold from being outside all day, which makes my poor chopstick skills even worse. I tried to grab a jiggly "acorn"-thing (they used their smartphone translator and it came up with acorn, but it was pretty gelatinous), and failed miserably with the chopsticks so they quickly ordered a fork for me.

They watched anxiously as I tasted the spicy tofu dish and it ended up being fine. It only had a little kick to it but was totally manageable. I ate that whole dish, and the bowl of non-spicy tofu, as well as most of the little side dishes. Myung-Lan and Eun-Huye weren't very hungry, but we had some good conversations. They each travel around a lot - Myung-Lan had just come back from playing golf in China, and Eun-Huye was going to Eastern Europe in April. Eun-Huye told me I had to try a "bomb," which apparently is just soju mixed with beer. I told them about "sake bombs" and "car bombs" which they enjoyed. I had a great time, and the food was phenomenal. Eun-Huye slipped her credit card to the server before I had a chance to even ask for the bill. I was disappointed, because I really felt like I owed them for being the nicest tourist information center employees ever. I started the day feeling isolated and overwhelmed, but ended it feeling pretty good.