New Experiences/Ewha Women's University

New experiences: I haven't noticed too many differences between the US and Korea, as far as infrastructure and culture. Korea has westernized a lot more than I thought it had. I think there are some things that are more traditional, but for the most part, things like sleeping on floor and certain etiquette doesn't seem to apply anymore. But there are some things that are very different from the US! Two things that I encountered and had a little trouble with were the showers and the toilets.

The shower in my aunt's house doesn't have a curtain, so the first time I took a bath, I had to duck into the tub and try to prevent all the water from splashing out and flooding the bathroom. Later, I noticed that there's actually a drain in the floor and you're supposed to just let all the water splash out and flood the bathroom. So now after I take a shower, the bathroom is a little flooded and I have to walk around in waterproof slippers, which is interesting. That's apparently just how restrooms in Korea are designed.

The toilets in most Korean homes are similar to the ones in the US, but I had to go to the restroom at a subway station once, and the toilet was in the ground! I spent a couple minutes contemplating how to use it. Whilst I will spare you the details, I can just say that using the toilets in Korea subway stations can be a great way to work out your thigh muscles! ...

Anyways, today I went to Ewha Women's University, which is where a lot of the women in my family graduated from. The students there were preparing for a open-house festival of some kind, so all of the girls were dressed very elegantly and taking lots of photos. The university campus is very pretty and has a lot of new additions that are nice to explore.

Ewha University campus

Afterwards, I stopped by Seodaemun Prison, which used to be a camp for rebels during the Japanese occupation of Korea. It has pretty graphic images and wax figures to replicate the torture methods used in the camps. If you are an emotional person, I recommend that you visit Seodaemun on a sunny day and find a happy place to go afterwards, because otherwise you'll be depressed and you might have nightmares. I tend to enjoy places like Seodamun Prison and the Holocaust museum. Maybe "enjoy" isn't the right term. I find these events to be interesting, because it shows the ability/extent of humans that you don't really get to see or experience. It shows how horrible people can be, but also how resilient they can be...and that's my psychology major coming through.

Prisoner barracks at Seodaemun Prison

Insadong (인사동)

Today I went to Insadong (인사동), which is a district in Seoul that sells a lot of traditional Korean items/tourist souvenirs. Insadong has a lot of traditional Korean purses, pencil cases, decorations, accessories, etc. Since I had a late start to the day, I started with lunch at a place that's supposedly well known for their dumplings (according to my cousin's cellphone). The fried dumplings were good, but there were kimchi dumplings that were just okay...not really to my tastes.

The dumpling restaurant. 

Fried dumplings, dumpling insides, and kimchi dumplings.

Insadong

It was raining for most of the day again, so after buying a couple of souvenirs for my friends and family, we stopped at a traditional tea house. It was called Korean Traditional Tea House (really creative, I know). My cousin said that I had to try one of their traditional teas, which include teas like Citron tea or Plum tea... Chrysanthemum tea, and so on. I think Korean style teas are a little too sweet for me. I prefer the typical herbal/black/green teas, unsweetened. But anyways, since we were at a traditional tea house, I had to have traditional tea. I wanted to try a tea I haven't tasted before, so I tried a "Five taste" tea, which is supposed to taste like all 5 tastes: bitter, sweet, salty, sour...and...a 5th one. Normally I don't like trying different things, but since I'm in a different country! When the five taste tea came out, I was a little surprised by how red the tea was. I think I was expecting the tea to look more like Eight Treasures Tea (They both have numbers in the name, I don't know!), but the Five Taste Tea was just red. I was hesitant to try it at first. It smelled a little strange, but then I tasted it and it doesn't taste at all like it smells. It tastes a little sour, like lemonade. I didn't hate it, but I probably won't drink it again...unless I have high blood pressure. It's supposedly good for lowering high blood pressure (according to the description on the menu). But that was an new experience!

After the tea house, we did a little more shopping around Insadong and then called it a day. Tomorrow I'll be going to Ewha University and Seodaemun Prison Museum!

Korean Traditional Tea House, interior

Five Tastes Tea (bottom) and rice cakes + honey and...ginger cookies, maybe?

Bargain Shopping in Seoul

I'm still in Pangyo until the end of this week. If I were to live in Korea, I think I'd prefer to live somewhere like Pangyo instead of in Seoul. The air is clear and the population isn't as dense. There are even single homes here!...which probably means that those homeowners have a lot of money. Yesterday it rained all day, but I got a chance to explore the coffee shops and boutiques of Pangyo. I bought some make-up and have been learning how to whiten and brighten my skin with skin-care masks, haha. When in Korea, do as the Koreans do! I have the make-up, so now I just need to get a perm and my journey in Korea will be complete (Just kidding).

Pangyo

Beans Bins in Pangyo. I spent the whole rainy day here to plan the rest of my stay in Korea.

I was complaining to my cousin about how everything in Korea is too expensive, so we took a trip to an underground shopping mall at the Express Terminal near Gangnam. The clothes they sold there are a lot more affordable than I've seen anywhere so far. You can get clothes and accessories for anywhere from $1-$30+. I also browsed around Shinsegae mall since that was nearby. Shinsegae mall has a lot of high-end brand stores like Chanel and Hermes, but those products are about double the price that they are in the US (Not that I can afford them either way). There are some nice (read: much more affordable) Korean brands on the upper levels though, so I did a little shopping there.

I thought I was going to have a hard time finding clothes in Korea, but I'm a size small in the US and I'm still a size small in Korea! The fashion in Korea isn't really to my tastes, but maybe I'll try it out just for kicks. I've also started drinking a lot of coffee since coming here. I really like Americano...iced and hot. I don't even know what an Americano is, but it's delicious.

Underground mall - Bus Terminal

Tomorrow I'll be going to Insadong to do some tea shopping!

Planning

Since I didn't have too much time to plan anything before I got here, things have been off to a slow start...at least that's what it seems like to me. I'm trying to make a list of places I definitely want to visit in the next month. In the next week, I'll be visiting the Gangnam area again, and I'm also hoping to visit:

• Namdaemun Street Market (Affordable -relatively- assorted goods)
• Gyeong-bok Goong and Chang-deok Goong (Historical Palace)
• National Museum of Korea
• Hong-dae (Young, hipster district)
• Ewha Women's University
• Insadong
• Itaewon (Gay district!! I love gay districts.)

The week after that, I'll be sight-seeing around Jeju Island, which I hear has lots of amazing scenery. Then I'm hoping to visit some Buddhist temples (Haeinsa temple) and Historical villages (Hawae). I might end up going to a green tea farm instead...apparently eating green tea ice cream from green tea farms is tasty. I'm contemplating whether or not I want to do a half-day temple stay at a Buddhist temple, where you get to meditate...but a requirement is that you have to be able to bow 180 times to the Buddha. That sounds painful. And I'll also be visiting the Seodaemon prison, which I think showcases the prison conditions for Korean rebels during the Japanese occupation? Which would be interesting to see. Anyways, today I bought a map, so I'm good to go!

The bookstores in Korea sell more assorted cute products than actual books...which is actually very smart because nobody buys books anymore. This is the bookstore where I bought my map.

Right now I've relocated from Seoul to the Pangyo district, which is about 30 minutes out. It's a relatively new neighborhood, so there isn't too much out here, but the air is SO much cleaner here than it is in Seoul. I'm not used to air quality that's so bad back in the States - unless we're talking about Manhattan. In Seoul, the air is muggy and the streets smell like sewage!...so it's a little nice to be out here for a bit. But I was in Seoul up until this morning and took a stroll around the Cheum-damdong district, which has a couple Western brands and cute bakeries. I had an awesome Ice Americano and really delicious Sapporo bread (A sweet dessert bread with crumbs on top) at a bakery that my cousin recommended (She's a baker) called Le Alaska.

Awesome Ice Americano!

I finally saw a plastic surgery clinic too! My cousin said that I just need to come again during the week to see lots of mummies, haha (AKA post-surgery patients). I also found the SM Entertainment HQ! But no celebrities...so disappointed. 

SM Entertainment HQ

And then it was super hot and disgusting outside, so I ended the afternoon with some Bingsoo (Korean shaved ice dessert)! I forget the name of the cafe though, sad.

Bingsoo. It had some persimmons and dried apricots, red beans, mochi, and peach ice cream!

Addition: Oh, and I also went to this bag boutique (I can't remember the name...again.) but they had lots of different animal hides. My cousin and I were definitely being way too loud and not high-class by making immature comments about the number of dead cows that were in the room. But anyways, it was very high class. So crasssy.

The big thing in the center is apparently a buffalo. RIP.

Learning my way around

Seoul is a really confusing place...mainly because everything is in Korean! My initial reaction to entering the city: It's smoggy...and it's pretty amazing to imagine all the people that live on this tiny piece of land (relative to the US). The weather has been pretty humid. Apparently it was really cold up until I got here, so there's a thick fog/smog covering the city. When I went up to Namsan Tower, there wasn't too much of the city to see. I'm thinking I'll go back when the city clears up.

Namsan Tower: I took a bus from my uncle's neighborhood to Namsan Tower. I was going to ride the cable car, but then decided it'd be more fun/affordable to walk up to the tower. I don't actually know how much the cable car was, but the grandma I ran into said it's not a bad walk up to the top, so that's what I did. We got to Namsan Tower and paid to ride up to the Observatory Tower, where you get a 360 view of the city. That was nice to see, but I don't think I'd pay to go see the view again. I got to see all of the locks surrounding Namsan Tower! I didn't try looking for the C-Clown lock, but I read a couple of the other locks as I was walking past them. Most of them just ask for good health, etc.

Locks at Namsan Tower

Myeong-Dong: After coming down from Namsan Tower, I walked around Myeong-Dong, which is the "Old Gangnam" as my uncle describes it. I didn't get a really good look at anything, but there seemed to be a lot of clothing stores, cafes, and a LOT of cosmetic boutiques. I got to see the different types of street food that Korea offers. Most of them are just variations of fried potatoes. I saw a lot of corndog looking food and a french fry ball! When I walked by a deokk bokki stand, I had to try it of course! My first Korean deokk bokki was not bad!...but I don't really have anything to say about it other than that. It just tasted like deokk bokki. A little sweeter than I'm used to and the sauce was thicker. It didn't have any ramen or vegetables - just deokk and tempura. Next to the deokk bokki, I did see soon-dae (Korean style sausage) dipped in deokk bokki sauce...I was too afraid to try it though.

Deokk-Bokki (far left: spicy korean rice cake)

I saw two girls walking around with their heads completely wrapped in bandages from cosmetic surgery. I think they had their jaws trimmed down ::shudder:: - but that was interesting to see! I guess I give them brownie points for being able to walk around like that in public. (Side note: There are a lot of advertisements for plastic surgery everywhere: on buses, on trains, everywhere. I think they're trying to tell me something.). Other than that, I didn't get to explore the area too much, but I'll definitely be back in Myeong-Dong to get a better look at some of the cute things they were selling.

Streets of Myeong-Dong