Wednesday:
After spending a little over an hour in Beijing traffic and a little less than two hours in flight, I finally reached the Incheon International Airport around 11 pm. Incheon is more than 100 km to the west of Seoul which is annoying, however, their mammoth state-of-the-art transportation hub has been awarded “best international airport” for the past three years and looks more futuristic than anything I have ever seen not on TV – “impressive” would be an understatement.
After meeting my good friend who would be putting me up for the next four nights (and rocking hard with me), we quickly got on a bus heading to Seoul. As the excitement of seeing my buddy and being in a new place started to kick in, I gazed out the window to see a city that seemed to have an infinite number of white-colored high-rises, rolling hills, and expansive bridges – a far contrast from my first trip into Beijing.
To elaborate, Seoul is populated by 20 million people and is considered the 2nd largest metropolitan in the world, following Tokyo. Nearly half of all South Koreans inhabit this land stretching along the Han River and wrapping around numerous mountains and into every enclave imaginable – and for some reason the color of this human infestation is primarily off-white (take a look for yourself on Google Earth). Land not taken over by this sprawling metropolis is either covered by mountainous terrain (naturally becoming parks) or covered by water flowing down the massive 1 km wide Han River that splits the city into halves, connected by a dozen or so (sometimes 12 lane) bridges.
It was late when we arrived in front of the COEX Shopping center, an enormous underground mall that stretches blocks in all directions (including down), so we immediately hopped into a black cab. These cabs are not be confused with the “black taxis” in Beijing which are basically guys in regular cars trying to make an extra buck. On the contrary, these cabs are fully pimped out with GPS navigational systems, high-quality stereos and transceivers, mobile phone holders, and other gadgets that are too advanced for those of us living outside of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Of course, these cabs are not cheap, and through the rest of my trip we used silver cabs which seemed to be just as cool and just as expansive.
My friend’s neighborhood lies in a district called Gwangjing-gu in the eastern part of the city just north of the river. According to my girlfriend (clearly a member of Seoul’s intelligentsia), this area doesn’t really possess anything special and is only known for its small garment factories. Also, the elevated rail that runs down the main avenue surely doesn’t help the value of real estate nearby. However, I find this neighborhood very charming the same way I feel about an old Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn. Instantly I felt quite comfortable here - 3-story buildings crammed together separated mainly by long alleyways, the 24 hour convenient stores, the fruit markets, the older waitress who never stops serving food at the bbq place on the corner, underground internet cafes, the hundreds of secret doorways and pathways that lead to the underbelly of the city.
Above: Gwangjing-guOn the other hand, I was taken back by the pungent smells of fish, the erratic streams of electric and telephone wire hanging above my head, the ancient men dragging large carts of cardboard – reminding me that I was still in Asia.
At this point, I was under the impression that my friend, two other guys (also English teachers living nearby) and I were going to hit the town at 1 am and it was going to be dead – I was dead wrong. When we arrived outside of Kundae (dae means university) a few blocks away, I received my first glimpses of Korean nightlife. What I saw before me was not a few bars, not a bar street, but literally a bar town. The streets were lit up by hundreds of neon signs that hung from every standing structure, students filled the streets heading to their favorite bars, clubs, or hops (Korean establishments where eating and drinking are both required), and street vendors were out in full force. During the ten minutes it took to walk to our first bar (called Woodstock because of its wide selection of Americana tunes) I couldn’t help but feel like I was in a mystical world that I had created... like a Japanese Vegas. After living in Beijing and living by “That’s Beijing”, an English magazine that lists the few new bars and restaurants that open every month, a happen upon one insignificant neighborhood in Seoul (a place none of my Korean friends have ever been too) and encounter easily a few hundred bars/restaurants and a street crowd larger than anything I have ever seen after midnight, in Beijing and New York. The most significant factors attributing to this phenomenon are simply population and drinking/eating habits (I will elaborate later).
The rest of the night was spent drinking soju (purchased at the 7/11 for 1300 won or $1.30), eating delicious but spicy street food, playing numerous crane games strategically placed outside of bars, shooting bb guns, getting kicked out of a hop for refusing to order food, and eventually eating some chow at the corner restaurant (the one with the semi-attractive older waitress that never sleeps). It was a great start to a fabulous vacation and it certainly would not be the last night I would see the sun rise in the city of Seoul.
to be continued...
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