Hello from Seoul,
Eleven hours, several movies and a billion podcasts after we took off from Seattle, we arrived in Seoul. The Delta airplane we flew in was an old Boeing 767, that had its interior refreshed a bit, but an old entertainment system. Half way into my first movie, the flight attendant came on and said they had to reboot the entertainment system because so many people were having trouble. It took 30 minutes to reboot while a bunch of Linux code sped across the screen. Seems like most of the flights we have taken on Delta lately have been on old equipment like this. The flying is the part I dislike most about traveling, but it’s only the “means” to an enriching “end.” Since we were on a one way flight, we were getting the third degree from everyone. They wanted to know when we were coming back and on what flight. I guess they’re just trying to keep the flying public safe.
Seoul is a very large city that works very well. The city population is about 10 million, with over 20 million in the greater area. It has 21 subway lines that can take you almost anywhere you want to go for about a dollar. In the newer parts of the city there are 12 lane boulevards crisscrossing the city. There is a fantastic new airport built on an island about 40 miles to the northwest, but it did take almost 2 hours to get to our hotel from the airport, on the subway, at a cost of only $5. The skyline is typical of most well developed Asian cities, with lots of unusual skyscrapers and over-the-top buildings. Best of all, though, is he Korean people. I have heard them called “the Irish of Asia.” They are extremely polite and very friendly. The city is kept in good repair and is exceptionally clean and safe. I saw no graffiti anywhere in the parts of the city we visited. It’s a delightful place to be.
They say here that “everything good about Korea began with King Sejotng the Great” in the 14th century. At the top of the “good” list is the Korean alphabet and the written language. The people love him dearly and there is a huge statue of him sitting in a chair with a big book, at a government square. As a tour guide explained to me, the written language is fairly simple. The alphabet has 19 consonants and 21 vowels. Every word starts with a consonant, has a vowel in the middle and ends with a consonant. And, there is no intonation that changes the meaning like there is in Chinese. He attributes part of their technological success to how easy it was to put their language on a keyboard.
The subway dropped us off right in front of the Park Hyatt Hotel, the 5 star Virtuoso joint where we spent our first three nights. It’s a beautiful hotel with fantastic views of the city from the top. When you walk in the front door greeters direct you into an elevator that whisks you to the 24th where the lobby is located. The top floor seemed an unusual place to locate the lobby, but it did have a fantastic 360 degree view of the city. Our room was on the 13th floor [no superstitions about that number here in Asia], so we had to go down in the elevator to get there. That was no real problem until we set out for breakfast the next morning, on the 2nd floor. For security reasons, the guest elevators only go down to the 4th floor. So, in order to get to the 2nd floor for breakfast, we had to go from the 13th floor up to the 24th floor lobby and transfer to another elevator down to the 2nd floor for breakfast. Then reverse the process to get back to our room. Going anywhere, except the lobby or another guest room, always meant taking two elevators. It was a weird setup, but it seemed to work for them. The elevators were never crowded and we never had to wait long for one. By the way, the breakfast buffet at the Park Hyatt was fantastic. The bread pudding was some of the best I’ve ever tasted.
The Hyatt was a very nice hotel, but, with one, possibly fatal, flaw. They cover their mattresses with plastic (for obvious reasons). We have encountered this at a few other hotels over the years, but it makes it difficult for your skin to breathe while you sleep and you must roll over to cool off and dry out, interrupting your sleep. As it turns out, our second hotel here, the Ri[an] not only covered their mattresses in plastic, but their pillows as well. There could be some kind of law or regulation about this in Seoul for sanitary reasons. Hard to know.
Our 13th floor room had floor to ceiling windows that looked out to a huge road intersection with 12 traffic lanes. Beyond the intersection was the Starfield COEX mall. It is the biggest underground mall in Asia (where they compete on mall size) at 38 acres. In the center is a giant library with bookshelves several stories tall. Atop this mall, outside, was a huge two sided 3D digital advertising screen (bigger than a drive-in movie screen) that, occasionally turned itself into a giant aquarium with whales swimming in it. [Probably some folks reading this don’t even know what a drive-in movie theater is?] It’s really cool and I posted some pictures and a short video of it in our photo gallery (see below).
Another thing that seems to be popular in Seoul (and perhaps all of Asia now) is heated toilet seats. We first bumped into these in Japan about 25 years ago, but it’s taken some time for them to catch on at other places. Both of our hotels had them, complete with a built-in warm water bidet. The bidet control panel was mostly in Korean, so I was reluctant to try them out, given the possible consequences of a mishap. I didn’t want to take any chances with the “family jewels.” At the Ri[an] hotel the bidet seemed to have a mind of its own. It would randomly flush itself without notice. In the middle of the night the noise of a flush would wake us up. Maybe it just liked to keep a fresh bowl waiting?
The weather was chilly and windy for the 6 days we were here and it rained for two days. We made good use of the umbrellas we brought along. Something interesting here was that most shops had a gizmo waiting just inside the door that would slip your wet umbrella into a plastic bag to keep the dripping water contained. Another interesting thing we observed here was that a lot of people wear filter masks over their faces. We inquired about it and learned that Seoul has a severe pollution problem this time of year when the warm spring weather comes. It is called “yellow dust” and blows in over the Yellow Sea from China. The week before we got here there was a high concentration of it. However, the day we arrived they announced the air had returned to normal.
Then, about three days later, we were walking around the town and our cell phones started squawking with a government alert. The message was in Korean so we didn’t know what it said. Could it be North Korea sending another missile overhead? Or, could it be our president preemptively striking North Korea? We didn’t know! There didn’t seem to be an panic in the streets so we just went about our business. Later, we got a translation of the alert message. It said that “at 6:00pm this evening children, the elderly and the infirm should wear masks to protect from the Yellow dust.” Hummmm…….. we still had three more days to go here.
Of course, the main reason for our visit to Seoul was Carol’s magazine story about Korean Tea Houses. So, we spent a lot of our time sampling the tea and snacks in numerous tea houses to find the best ones for her story. They are often housed in 100+ year old wooden buildings that exude charm and history, and are decorated accordingly. They mostly all carry the same kinds of tea offerings with subtle differences. Beyond the traditional green tea, the favorite seems to be Jujube tea. The Jujube is a red date that is sliced and boiled into a sweet rich red tea. Another favorite is Ssangwha tea which is made with medicinal herbs and brewed for 15 hours. It is said to be good for stomach ulcers and flu. Persimmon, ginger and cinnamon are also common ingredients in the herbal teas. We tried most of them along with the snacks that each shop specializes in. They were delightful. The hard part for me was sitting on the floor at these tea houses. My legs used to cross into the lotus position back in college, but they can’t twist that much for very long now. It was just a little painful standing up after each tasting. If you have any interest in the teas of Korea, I’m sure Carol will be sending out a link to her story, coming later this summer or fall.
The last thing I’d like to mention about Seoul is “The Stream.” It is a 7 mile long waterway that flows below street level through the middle of the city. It’s been used over the centuries as a source of water, transportation, a garbage dump etc. It’s been covered over and then re-exposed about 15 years ago. Currently, it is a beautiful peaceful park, meandering through the city. It has art installations, sculptures, waterfalls, flowers and greenery, and is crossed by 22 unique bridges, some of which are built with the their original 500 year old stones.
Well, that’s about it for our visit to Seoul. There is so much more to tell, but I fear I’ve stayed too long already. I’m typing this on an 8 hour airplane ride to Tashkent, Uzbekistan where we have two weeks planned, traveling throughout the country. The Internet service in Seoul was excellent but I’m not expecting such good service in Tashkent. We’ll connect again as soon as we can. In the mean time, check out the photo gallery and Carol’s blog for more information.
Later…… your favorite travelers, Tom and Carol
Seoul Photos
Click to Enlarge and Read Caption
