Soshified Korea Trip part 1

Now that I've had some time to adjust to being back in the states I thought I'd write up another account of the rest of the activities I did on the trip with Soshified to Korea to see SNSD. I wrote up an account of SNSD's concert and other Kpop related stuff we did a few weeks ago which can be found here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=248693

I'll skip over the concert since I wrote a LOT about it already. This time I'll talk about all the touristy type stuff we did and the places we saw. Seoul is a ridiculously awesome city.

We flew into Incheon International Airport after a 12.5 hour flight from San Francisco. A lot of us were pretty tired but once we got through immigration we were greeted by fans holding banners welcoming us to Korea along with a bunch of press. It had been reported weeks in advance that we were coming to see SNSD so the press was eager to interview us once we got there. Korea is very interested in their culture being spread around the world, so a bunch of foreigners coming all the way to Korea to experience that culture was very exciting.

After about an hour bus ride into Seoul we arrived at our hotel to check in. We stayed at the Riverside Hotel and it was pretty nice. They had a ridiculous breakfast spread for us every morning in the banquet hall. Here is the front of the hotel, the view from my room, and the street where the hotel was.

After we checked in it was pretty late so we went to dinner at a nearby restaurant and had Shabu Shabu. The first food we had in Korea was extremely delicious. Everyone was having a great time getting to know each other more and meeting people we had talked with online.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and crashed since it was late and everyone was tired. The next day we woke up early and had an awesome breakfast at the hotel and left for our first real destination on the trip. We went to the Korea Tourism Organization in downtown Seoul as part of a press event for our trip. We went inside the KTO and were followed by reporters asking for interviews. Inside there was a lot of different areas that showcased dramas, music, and other aspects of Korean culture. Naturally we gravitated toward the Kpop area where there were TV's playing SNSD videos. There were lifesize cutouts of various stars like 2NE1 and SNSD members in addition to pictures on the wall and bronzed handprints of other idols. Lots of people were taking pictures with the cutouts. It was pretty crowded in there because it was a fairly small area for over a hundred people to be walking around with including press cameras.

After we checked out the inside we went back outside to have the press event. The president of the KTO, Charm Lee, gave a speech about Korean culture and how KTO wants everyone to know how special it is, and how Kpop specifically is a very important part of expanding awareness of Korea. He was a very nice guy and very passionate about Korea. After his speech the press interviewed a few people and had us all do SNSD's cheer for the cameras. They made a few people dance while we all sang SNSD songs too. Those Korean reporters, they love seeing foreigners dance Kpop songs so much.

Since we were already downtown, the next stop was literally just walking across the street to Cheonggye Stream. This is a man made stream in the heart of Seoul. As we were all walking around, press was still following us and got some of us to do some interviews. The stream itself was actually pretty cool, and they even had a crew scrubbing it to keep it clean. That also reminds me, Seoul is the cleanest city I've ever been in. There's no trash, anywhere. Seriously you could eat off the sidewalk it's so clean. Near the stream there is this sculpture of what can only be described as some kind of ice cream cone thing and then the Seoul mascot, Haechi.

Right down the main street of Seoul is Gyeongbok Palace, the biggest palace in Seoul, and was originally the center of the city many many hundreds of years ago. It was absolutely surreal to see this huge sprawling palace with all these old buildings right in the middle of this massive metropolis. We witnessed a changing of the guard when we arrived. They had a guy banging on this huge drum while guards walked in from the side and replaced the guards inside the first courtyard while they were playing these old horns. After that we continued inward toward the center of the palace. There were three huge gates before you got to the main throne building, but the palace itself continued on forever behind it. There were so many buildings that were used for living quarters of the King and the Queen(who slept in a separate building!) and the King's concubines. Our awesome tour guide Angela explained that the main job of the King was to produce a son and thus required a bunch of concubines who actually held significant power. Very interesting. There was a large field and a pond that had a resting area in the middle of it. There was also a huge building that served as a museum but we did not go in there. I was blown away by the sheer scale of the palace. Once you thought you reached the end it just kept on going.

We visited the ancient political center of Seoul, so naturally we had to visit the current political center. We went to see the Blue House, the Korean equivalent to our White House. You aren't allowed anywhere near it so we had to grab pictures from a designated picture taking spot that had a lot of guards around it. Next to the Blue House is a reception center for gatherings. This is the building without the blue roof. Also near the Blue House was a fountain memorial for separated families. Separation of families due to the separation of North and South Korea is actually a serious issue in the country, with many families never getting the chance to see each other since the split.

We had some free time after visiting the Blue House to get lunch and shop around. We were in the neighborhood of Insadong, and as we were all walking down the street we saw an Innisfree store. That is a big cosmetic brand in Korea and one of the members of SNSD, Yoona, endorses it. It was absolutely hilarious seeing everyone go into this store and clean them out of every single Yoona item they had. A lot of people got photocards, posters, and random cosmetic stuff. Innisfree was certainly smart to get Yoona to endorse their brand. Sones will buy anything that has SNSD on it, especially foreign sones who rarely have access to this stuff. Speaking of that, every single 7-11 we saw we went in to buy Vita500 because guess what, SNSD endorses it. This vitamin drink must have had a huge increase in sales for the week we were there. Everyone was trying to collect all the bottles because they had each individual member on them. The plus side, that drink is actually really good and I want some right now... Insadong was a cool shopping area with lots of different stores and restaurants. A group of us had lunch at this place called Rice Story and had delicious kimchi fried rice. After lunch we were walking back to our meetup spot(7-11 where everyone was buying Vita500) we got some fried red bean paste balls(I forget what they were actually called). They were the size of a donut hole and had a faint chocolate flavor, sooooo yummy.

The next stop was one of the most touristy things we did on the entire trip. No, it was definitely the most touristy. Went went to a place to learn how to make kimchi and try on traditional Korean costumes called hanbok. We had some ginseng milk while making the kimchi which was really good. Since I like to cook Korean food, making the kimchi was fun for me, but trying the hanbok on was just a bit too awkward for a tall white guy. The kimchi we made we donated to orphans instead of taking it with us. Having kimchi is like a right in Korea, so they needed it more than we did. There are even special kimchi refrigerators. It's served at every single meal. Certainly kimchi is something that Korea is famous for.

After that we went to Sinchon-dong which is an area where a lot of university students hang out. Ewha Women's University is in the area, and it was a very lively shopping area. There was an Innisfree so naturally it got cleaned out of the Yoona goods. This huge department store was in the area with a large courtyard in front of it. As we were walking back to Sinchon station to meetup for dinner we went by an Italian restaurant where part of a tv show called Running Man was filmed. We just completely stumbled upon it and some people in our group recognized it.

Our dinner was at a restaurant that is known for its samgyetang, which is ginseng chicken soup. It was really really good. It was very hot outside, and this soup was actually really refreshing due to the light flavor, even though the soup itself was served boiling hot.

Halfway through dinner our trip leader pulled three of us out to do an interview we had agreed earlier to do. The three of us went down the street to a cafe where we met with a few reporters from Chosun news, a respected news agency in Korea. We spent about 40 minutes there answering various questions on how we found out about Kpop and SNSD, how our life has changed because of SNSD, what we like about Korea, how we paid for the trip, what it's like actually being in Korea, things like that. I represented e-sports by telling the reporter that I found out about SNSD through watching Starcraft, and one of the reporters got all excited because she was a fan of the GSL.

After the Q&A session we went outside and the photographer had us sing and dance some SNSD songs(see I told you they love that stuff). It was pretty fun talking with the reporters after the Q&A. I was happy because one of them complimented me on my Korean pronunciation. In the press conference for the concert, SNSD member Yuri specifically stated that she read this particular news article and was very happy after seeing how they have touched foreign fans' lives and that we were now interested in Korean culture. This made me extremely happy to hear that she read about me and saw my picture. I cannot really describe that kind of feeling, knowing for a fact that Yuri actually read about me and saw my picture. As a fan, I don't think it could get much better than that outside of sitting down with them personally and talking to them.

The interview ended and we got in a taxi to quickly make it to our next schedule. Everyone else had already gotten to the venue and the three of us were very close to missing the show because of the interview. We went to see the Jump show. It's a kind of martial arts comedy play without much dialogue. It was actually hysterical. The story was of a family meeting a young man who was courting the daughter, but when you removed the guy's glasses he turned from this shy guy into a total badass who would fight anyone. Their was a pair of thieves who came into the house and fought with everyone. The uncle had a drunken boxing fighting style which was awesome to see in person, and he was so funny acting it out. The whole show was really entertaining with the fighting choreography and the comedy was seriously funny.

This incredibly busy day was officially over at this point as we got back to the hotel around 11pm. However a bunch of us decided to head out to Dongdaemun night market to check out some of the nightlife. We took a taxi there around 11:30pm and walked around for a bit in the market and also went into one of the department stores. These stores are huge, unlike any store I've been in, like 10 stories of clothes and stuff. You go in and haggle with the vendors over the price of stuff. It was SO much fun haggling with this guy as I bought a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I was conversing in my basic Korean and he in his basic English. It was pretty funny but we were both able to understand each other and the guy was super nice and friendly. I ended up knocking the price down by 40,000 won(~40 bucks). I caught back up with everyone outside and we got some street food. I got a fish cake, which is like this fish breadlike type thing on a stick smothered in sauce. Very yummy as a late night snack walking around the market. It started to rain pretty hard and it was impossible to find a taxi at 1am because so many people were hailing them down. We went inside one of the other department stores and our awesome trip leader treated us all to patbingsoo and a waffle covered in ice cream. Holy crap these desserts were good. The waffle was crispy on the outside and soooo soft on the inside, and the patbingsoo(shaved ice with red bean paste, fruit and ice cream) was delicious. We caught a cab back to the hotel after this around 2am. Dongdaemun night market was a highlight of the trip for me. So much fun hanging out with everyone late at night talking over dessert and street food.

That ends our first full day in Seoul. The rest of the trip will be in part 2!

Part 2 is up here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=257334

Soshified Korea Trip part 1

Completed

Ongoing

Upcoming