Snapshots of Seoul

Previous to our Lantern Festival trip to Seoul a couple of weeks ago, I had only been to the city once, where I spent a sick day in bed while my family and in-laws did cool touristy things.  So, here I describe some of the other things we experience in Seoul besides the Lantern Festival.

First,  you need to understand more about this city.  You undoubtedly know that Seoul is the capital of South Korea, but you might not know that is a politically-charged statement: some hold Seoul to be the capital of all of Korea, but for you, gentle reader, we shall leave the politics behind (feel free to take them up with Nick at your own peril).  Now I knew Seoul was "a big city," but I didn't realize until later just HOW big: no matter how you measure it, it's one of the very biggest cities in the world, vying for Biggest status with Tokyo, Jakarta, and Delhi.  Ten million people live in Seoul, which is at least 20% of South Koreans (some estimate as many as 50% of South Koreans live in Seoul, which seems to me like a darn huge margin of error).  Ok, so what does that really mean? If we apply the math to the US population, about 63 million Americans (20% of 313.9 million people) would live in a single city. That is FAR beyond the combined populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and the next 27 biggest US cities (when I got tired of the math).  In sum, Seoul is home to a whole lot of Koreans.

So what's Seoul like as a city?  In some ways, it's just like any other big, modern city: skyscraper apartment buildings, buses and taxis everywhere, street vendors and chain stores vying for your business. But this city is also 2000+ years old, and the Koreans have done a marvelous job of reflecting its ancient-ness alongside its modernity.  Perhaps what surprised me most was that Seoul doesn't create the fear I have felt in cities like Chicago, New York, Moscow, and Lagos.  Thus, gawking around the market or the historical sites doesn't require one hand on one's wallet (or camera) and another on one's children; we are free to look and point and roam. After many kilometers of walking, we had seen just a couple of beggars; the police (very visible with their fluorescent yellow vests) do not carry guns--just black sticks.  Amazing.

Pictures are better than words, so here are some collages just to give you a flavor of our 40 hours in one little corner of Seoul: The Very Big City.

As we drove across the country to Seoul (just 4 hours), we saw the sun set over the mountains;
the toll plaza toilet stalls included handy cell phone numbers (I assume my stall #21 wasn't the only one with this mysterious information); and we avoided the badly-named snack food. 

At the toll plaza restaurant,  the kids and I stuck with the pork cutlets (with a curry/corn sauce) with rice, salad. and pickled Korean radish; none of us needed the unusually-named ramen or the Baby Sanitary Zone (located just feet away from our table).

We stayed at the Lotte Castle, home of our friends Jessica and Andre Kok; our kids enjoyed breakfast together; we were astonished to see a fearless salesman on the highway.

 Seoul's 8 original city gates (destroyed and re-built several times) still stand. We walked to the south gate (Namdaemun) and admired the juxtapositions of the dark, original stones with the whiter new ones.  I couldn't pass up the shot of the Chevy building across the street from this 2000-year-old fortress.  :)

On the streets (clockwise from top left): a Korean woman who might not know what her hat means in English;
a pet clothing store specializing in silk hanbok (traditional Korean clothing for people);
a somewhat disturbed woman aggressively scattering bubbles;
a ceremonial changing of the guard (complete with modern earpieces);
hip young man in pink suitcoat and rolled-up skinny pants (probably not gay - clothes here have no apparent connection to sexual orientation); a salesman fitting ajumma pants onto a mannequin's legs.

Despite all the fun we had exploring Seoul, sobering signs of the recent Sewol ferry disaster were obvious.  Tables were set up for people to write messages on yellow ribbons; high school students held signs as a vivid reminder of the youth of most ferry passengers; a weeping woman helped her young son attach a ribbon to the fence.

Koks took us to a 2nd-story, closet of a restaurant that was utterly covered with customers' notes (reminding us of Gino's East in Chicago).  They serve 2 things: spicy ramen and insanely spicy ramen (along with kimbap: seaweed-covered rice).  Many of the notes warned future customers of the soup's heat hot nature of the soup.

Fun with the kids: Nick offers a scary shoulder ride to Pieter; Elisabeth loves the street vendor's hot waffle filled with whipped cream  and chocolate ice cream; David poses with a strange sign and plays war with Pieter in the apartment.

Signs of Seoul:  To be sure, Seoul has far fewer bad-English signs than we see elsewhere, probably because there are so many English speakers (and because the city offered money to folks who submitted pictures of "funny signs," which probably means they quickly got changed).  So: a flower shop's unusual range of offerings; incomprehensible rules for the Lotte Castle's 4th-floor park/garden; a tailor shop's proud award for...something; and David pondering the usefulness of information (not) available.

HOME-ish! If you've never lived abroad, this set might not make sense to you.  We visited the US Army base (where Andre works), and everything there is 100% American.  We were nearly hysterical with all the English signs, the white and black people (dressed in jeans!), American snacks and electrical outlets, and the fantastic food.   We took dozens and dozens of pictures of this "home" so far from  home.