Finally, we got Seoul! Arrived via Air Japan on a brand new Boeing 787. Nice plane, if you’re an infant. The seats have obviously been narrowed to get even more asses on the plane. Where will it end??? Air travel used to be a luxury, people looked forward to getting on a plane, just for the experience. Now, the airline industry is the epitome of an industry that couldn’t care less about their customers and knows that not giving a shit will not affect the bottom line. How did we let this happen?

Seoul uses Uber so we thought perfect, no dealing with taxis and negotiating, or trying to understand the cost of a ride.  Well, first thing we learned is that there is no, and I mean no, internet 20 feet away from the airport building. Couldn’t open the app so we walked back to the door and bingo, app opened. Scheduled up a ride and hustled back to the pick-up spot. Car arrived in 10 and off we go to our hotel, the Aloft, by Marriott. Weather here is hot, around 77F and pretty humid. Already missing those cool days in Japan…

One hour later, no joke, we arrived at our hotel. Cost was 56,000.00 PHP (or Won), about $38.00 USD. Not bad for an hour-long ride. In Tokyo, that same ride was quoted at $250.00USD! Awesome, hotel. We have a suite on the 12^th floor, king bed (YES!) and breakfast include. Nice but nothing like the onsen we had at our last stop in Japan. Checked in and called it a day. Doing a walk-about tomorrow.

Great night’s sleep in that huge bed! Time for some American style breakfast. Nice buffet breakfast with made-to-order cooked eggs! Man, have I missed fried eggs! Of course, they also had the usual Asian breakfast goodies, rice, fish, noodles, miso, octopus, mystery dishes (no tag so had no idea what it was).

Today we plan to explore bit, go to the palace and then the market. What a difference from Japan. Everything in Japan seemed to be organized, clean, straight forward. That could be because we had our personal guide, Raya, teach us then do’s and don’ts. Here, just me and Momma-san to figure it out.

Here’s a note about South Korea. Since there hasn’t been an “end” to the Korean conflict, just a truce, these folks live in constant fear that the North will rise up again someday and start that fight all over. So, in order to confuse the enemy, the South Korean government forbids any detailed imaging of their country, no street views. Don’t want them bad guys to know where shit is. Like the Chinese don’t share their imaging data with N. Korea, right.

What that means is there are no “walking” Google maps, none. I can pull up the 7-11 down the street from our hotel and the fastest way to get there by Google is to take a bus or subway, 25 minutes, or I can walk there in 5. But if you don’t know how far things are, walking could get pretty tiring. (Do they really think the North doesn’t have every street, house, barracks, comms tower, etc. located and military targets identified? How naive can you be!)

The solution is to buy a bus/subway card, T-Money, put a few dollars on it and use the public transportation system to get around. OK, bought the card at the local 7-11, now to the subway to put money on the card. That turned into a 30-minute walk to find a subway entrance and the machine for loading bucks on the card.

Next was to find the subway line to get us to the palace. Another 30 minutes and some time with a nice gentleman from California who directed us to the right line. 1 stop later, got off to transfer to the bus, another 30 minutes passes. According to Google, the entire trip should have taken 23 minutes, we’re going on 1.5hrs. and we’re still not there.

Because there is no “street view” it makes it difficult to see which side of the street the bus stop is on. Another 20 minutes goes by,12:00pmish and we arrive at the palace!

Like most palaces, temples, shrines, etc. in Asia, the original has long been destroyed either by fire or war, and rebuilt. Korea is no exception. The original palace was built in 1395, three years after the Joseon Dynasty was founded by Yi Seong-gye. The palace name, Gyeongbokgung” means, “the Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven.” The surrounding area was comprised of numerous government buildings.

During the first Japanese invasion, all the capital buildings were burnt down. That was around 1592. A second palace was built in 1610, but the main palace was in ruins and not reconstructed until 1867. The rebuilt palace incorporated the original styling. Some 500 buildings were built around the palace area to create a small city, Seoul.

Enter the Japanese, again. The second invasion by the Japanese saw them completely destroy the palace. This “colonization” of Korea began in 1910 and lasted until the end of World War II in 1945. Not until the late 1990’s did efforts begin to rebuild the palace once more. Today, the palace and grounds are still undergoing further reconstruction.

Up next on our top ten list…the Myeongdong Market. This is billed as a magical sort of place that really takes off after dark. Since our hotel is only feet from the entrance, we decided to not wait until dark and just stroll through during the day. We have a night food tour coming up in a couple of days that I’m sure will include parts of this market.

To our surprise, this market is more like a flea market selling everything under the sun, not a food market. Interlaced with these shops are tiny restaurants offering such delicacies as fried tripe in tomato sauce, or beef tongue shabu (shabu is a “hot pot” meal where you boil everything using a “hot pot” at your table). We happened to find a nice Korean steakhouse and gave it a try for dinner. Not bad, not cheap but not too expensive, and the waiter cooked the meal at our table on a little indoor charcoal grill.

Good enough for today. Tomorrow, we have a tour of the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) and it’s supposed to rain all day. Great. Can’t control the weather so hope the waterproofing holds up. Now back to the places in Japan I missed…

Najung-e