Sooooo....Apr 4th morn, started out early to the airport via the Airport Express. Could check in even at the train station itself. Don't know if KL Sentral is the same, but I'm impressed with the efficiency. Line was long-ish but Cathay is so efficient. I think I'm going to be sticking with them for a while yet.
Arrived Seoul after lunch and after Sands rented a cellphone (South Korea uses CDMA technology and both our phones were GSM AND non-3G). It costed her USD3 per day plus all outgoing calls. I have to admit it was reasonable but I could live without it. Still, if she wants one... Then took the Airport Bus (The Airport Bus is a regular bus service that stops at certain major locations within Seoul) to Anguk where our guesthouse was situated. The proprietor of Anguk Guesthouse, Mr Kim, was there to meet us.
Thought we would pay more to stay here as it was billed by Lonely Planet as a "traditional Korean-style" place. It's all made of pine (?) wood, the walls are papered to keep the heat in, there is the famed underfloor heating (more abt that later) and there is a stone-paved courtyard in the middle...so that part's "traditional" traditional I guess i.e. postcard friendly. Otherwise, it was more like traditional in the 1950's style...the interior esp really reminded me of grandma's house. However, we had an attached bathroom (a surprise cos when I called, he said we didn't -- blame it on the language dancearound) and our own computer with Internet connection! And the location was pretty central -- only abt 10 mins walk to the Anguk subway station. Taking the subway turned out to be pretty cheap too -- it costed abt 1000 won each time, which is roughly USD1.
The flight to Seoul took roughly 3 hrs and the bus ride from Incheon airport to Anguk another 1.5-ish hrs, so it was approaching evening by the time we had deposited our luggage. Insa-dong, an area known for antiques and picture-worthy traditional restaurants was abt a block away only. So headed there and browsed the shops, which sold mostly jade, ceramics, souvenirs. I'd anticipated needing to ask "How much?" and to bargain i.e. call something expensive, so had memorized the phrases "Eol-ma ye yo?" and "Bissai-yo!" respectively. BUT overlooked learning the counting system! In the end, resorted to speaking just in English, albeit slowly. Felt kinda guilty that we looked Korean, cos all the shop attendants greeted us and unlike Japan, tried to make conversation with us...and we didn't know what else to do except smile and look away. After a while, it started to feel like we were being rude, so took to saying "Not Korean" every time, with the sheepiest smile we could give.
Then it was time for dinner. Flipped through the LP guide and thought we'd try the traditional Korean banquet, which consists of abt 15 dishes. Picked the place that had a rating (as opposed to just a listing), and closest to where we were....but had a mighty surprise when we got there. Firstly, the main hall was the kitchen, which looked like it was part of a home. But there was a sign outside that clearly had the restaurant's name!! Still, we stayed our ground as the first person who greeted us (a grandmotherly sort) went to get someone who could presumably speak something other than Korean (after we indicated we clearly didn't know the language). Somehow or other we muddled through and she led us to a room....that looked like a living room -- with a TV, a coat rack (with someone's clothes on it) and even the usual sort of knick-knacks you would typically find in a home e.g. school medals, little dolls etc. We were seated on the floor at a low table. Then as it dawned upon us that they had no menu, we also realized that our hostess spoke barely any English.
Thus our second Korean adventuring nugget -- the first time I used my Japanese language lessons was at a Korean restaurant! Sands thought it extremely amusing that neither the hostess nor us were Japanese and we were most def NOT in Japan or any Japanese-y area...but had to resort to the language. I'd heard from my mom abt an acquaintance of hers who, speaking only Hokkien and English, could not speak to a Chinese hawker who only knew Cantonese and Mandarin...and having to speak Bahasa Malaysia instead. But in that situation, they were in Malaysia at the very least. And if you're wondering what the first nugget was: we had just exited the guesthouse and heading down a small road towards Insa-dong. Feeling heady abt being in Seoul, I wanted to take a pic of us both...so I stopped a young woman in her twenties, and asked her very slowly (with hand movements) if she could take a pic for us. It's true that I DID ask her in English, but I don't think Sands and I were prepared for the response. She looked at me, shook her head wordlessly and then promptly turned around and ran away! And I mean literally RAN.
Anyway, dinner was really banquet-ish: so much food we couldn't finish it all! Altho Sands said that maybe it was cos she was too busy drinking the lemon-sliced flavoured soju that she wasn't eating her share. :P Also if we were allowed to sit longer, we might've slowly finished the food...but at 9.30pm, we were told that the restaurant was closed with the implication that we should leave as soon as possible. Now...we could've possibly finished earlier if we didn't keep getting interrupted! For some reason, I guess the idea of two Korean-looking girls who spoke English was cause for wonder. Every 10 mins, the hostess would come in, and ask us how we were doing. If it wasn't that, then it would be the hostess AND some other guest (!!) who wanted to look (and speak English??) to us. All the conversations with them went roughly like this:
Us: Yes?
Them: Hello. (smile smile)
Us: Hi. (uncertainly smiling back)
Them: We can speak English.
Us: Oh ok.
Them: You're both very pretty (!!) (altho a nice ego stroke, since this was out of nowhere, we thought that maybe they had nothing else they felt comfortable saying in English)
Us: Thank you.
Them: Nice meeting you.
Us: Ok, bye, thank you. (for lack of words)
Nevertheless they were polite and courteous so we didn't feel like we were in any trouble. And it really wasn't cheap -- the Korean shop attendant in Insa-dong whom we talked to wasn't kidding when she said that it was a 4-5 star type of establishment. Sands and I figured that we probably just got put into the "unusual" room cos they'd run out of regular rooms -- I passed by one of the other rooms and while sparse, they definitely looked like guestrooms i.e. with effort made to display paintings and sculptures.
We walked back in the cold air (yes, Seoul is AS COLD AS Toronto) but feeling all warm and fuzzy from the soju.I couldn't help thinking to myself: with the narrow alleyways lined with wood-built houses and the walk home from dinner (and drink), this is probably what a Japanese salaryman walking home from a night out feels like -- but with much less alchohol in my bloodstream.
