…in Seoul.
Orientation was in Seoul, but honestly, we were so busy there wasn’t any
free time – except to drink at night.
People made time for that :D
The Korean students from my University live in Seoul and I
am lucky to have kept in touch with them. I spent the weekend with them and they showed
me more than I expected to see. The best
part is seeing someone I could talk about home with and have them know what I
was talking about.
To start, I took my first Bullet Train!!! Really exciting
except for my ears popping when we started speeding up after every train station
but still fun. I left Friday night after
school (and I felt super guilty for skipping practice for the day) so I made it
to Seoul late Friday night.
On Saturday morning, I started off in the Myeong-Dong
shopping area where we browsed the clothing stores until finding a place to
eat. When I saw our waitress I almost
made a noise from being shocked. I can’t
really explain it, but her eyes looked really creepy. My friends told me that she had plastic
surgery and the surgeon must have messed it up.
The girl had to apply eyeliner in the weirdest way to make it look
better than it really was. I have heard
from a few different sources that wider eyes/double eyelids is a desirable
plastic surgery so many people (it’s not a just a girl thing) get it done. I guess I am glad that I can look at myself
and think while there are things I would like to change, none of it would
require going under the knife. Besides
that oddity, we ate our food, laughed at the aprons we had to wear so we wouldn’t
splatter ourselves with sauce, and told each other stories.
We left Myeong-dong then headed to the little stream that
runs through Seoul called Cheonggyecheon and walked a bit of it. Just a nice, refreshing sort of walk. We sat down and looked at the fish for a
while and then I decided to pull my favorite prank :D I took my camera out of its case and while I
had their attention, I “dropped” it into the water. They gasped, “Oh no!” as I pulled it out of
the water. I giggled and then told them
it’s waterproof. They still looked
shocked but they started laughing too. I
remember when I was in Rome with my mom I did the same thing in a Roman
Fountain. It gets people scared all the
time but it’s an easy/fun prank to pull hehe.
I didn’t realize how close pretty much everything I wanted
to see in Seoul was and I got to see it all on the walk after Cheonggyecheon. We walked up the large street/plaza with the
statues of King Sejong and General Yi Sun Shin to the entrance of the
Gyeongbokgung Palace but instead of going inside we walked the entire perimeter
of the walls on the outside of the Palace.
The Blue House (Korea’s equivalent to the White House) sits behind the
Palace so I took some pictures and by that time, I was hungry, cold, and my
feet were killing me.
So we had dinner in another flashly looking area called
Samcheong (?). All the area names
started to run together so there is a good chance this name is wrong. Nothing special about dinner—unless you count
the little Korean toddler that fell off her chair next to me when I waved to
her. She was adorable and her little
Pororo training chopsticks were even cuter ^_^
It’s nighttime by now but I was way too tired to drink so we
did the next best thing.
NORAEBANG!! If you don’t know
what that is, you need to find out and then take a group of your friends to the
nearest one. If you want, sneak in some
alcohol to make it even more interesting; everyone else does it anyways.
The next day I meet up with another Pacific University
friend and we walked around the BukCheon Hanok Village...
...until finding a dokkbukki place to eat lunch at. Delicious, cheap food. That’s really all I need when it comes down to it J We walked around more of Samcheong and it looks like a great place to be if you like cafes and boutiques. It reminded me of NW 23rd in Portland.
The whole reason I came up to Seoul in the first place was
because Buddha’s Birthday is a National Holiday so I had an extra two days off
of work so my two day weekend became a four day weekend. So Monday rolls around and my goal was to see
Gyeongbokgung and Jogye-sa (A Buddhist Temple).
I get to Gyeongbokgung and it’s just courtyard after
courtyard of buildings and walls. The
first two courtyards were huge but then they became much smaller after the Kings
Throne room in the second courtyard. Don’t
get me wrong, the Palace was beautiful—given that it was completely burned down
and it’s been an ongoing project since the 90’s to bring this historic palace
back to the way it used to be—but the buildings all looked the same just in
different sizes so I didn’t spend as much time there as I wanted too. I especially loved the little pond all the
way in the back of the palace with the little pagoda island in the middle. It was a welcome change from the city.
I intended on
visiting the temple and maybe making a paper lantern with my hopes and dreams
attached to it but upon arriving, I quickly changed my plans. Going to a Buddhist Temple on Buddha’s
Birthday I’m sure is the Christian Equivalent to trying to see Westminster
Abbey during Easter… ‘Just never going to happen. This temple was packed with hundreds of people
lined up around the building and then looping like an “s” a million times
over. If you’ve waited in line for Space
Mountain at Disneyland or for ‘X’ at Magic Mountain you know what I mean. I really didn’t think this one through so I
snapped some pictures of other people’s lanterns and left to eat lunch.
One of the things that I always thought was interesting was
about this girl I met at a wrestling camp the summer after my freshman year of
high school. She lived in the same
county as me and I continued to see her at many girls tournaments around the
state and even nationals. I thought it
was a huge coincidence that we picked the same college to go to. The summer after we graduated University, I
found out she was also coming to Korea to teach English. I think it’s the coolest thing that our lives
have mimicked each other’s in a certain way.
So on Monday night, I got to see her in Seoul.
By Tuesday - I was
just tired and not to mention getting sick so I booked my train back earlier
than expected but before leaving, I saw the first Korean I met at Uni and she
opened all the doors to meeting the other Koreans so MyeongEun Unni – gamsahabnida!!
So as much as I loved Seoul and seeing all my friends from
Pacific, as I was coming up the escalator after getting off the train in Busan,
I saw a sign that said “I <3 Busan” and I thought to myself, “Yes, yes I
do. I’m home.” And that feeling alone was worth the trip to
Seoul. You never know your home until
you’ve left it so at least now I can officially say; I feel at home and Busan
IS my new home.
No comments:
Post a Comment