A taste of home in Seoul

Day 3 in Korea was set to be spent looking at old stuff from the flea market in Dongdaemun. Especially special because John loves old things, the more dust the better. First stop was a stroll through a nearby food market, Chungbu Market, right by our hotel. Chungbu market is one of those typical outdoor markets you find all over Asia. Its where the local folk would go and do their shopping and there would not be a tin can or western advertising hoard anywhere to be seen. So the market was stock with many dried herbs, vegetables, fish (dried and fresh), nuts, grains, cereals (no coco pops).

Let's take a stroll down the Chungbu market.

Take a closer look at the bags to the top right. See lots of eyes and mouths. Yep, their fish head, giant bags full of them. Mmmmm

Endless sea of dried fish!

Any for some fresh sting-ray. And to the right, some fish tied up so they don't get away. Those slippery little suckers.

The pyramid known as silk worm city

Ginseng alcohol is also very popular in Korea

Look! We found Mina our email friend. She's aged a bit since the last we saw of her. (In-house joke for ALT's working with the New Crown Textbook). We even got her to do the peace sign, how cool was that.

The trusty Lonely Planet Guide (although according to a recent report not so trusty), suggesting visiting the flea market that was situated in a Stadium right next to Dongdaemun stadium. My initial thoughts walking through was that it reminded me of the Queen Victoria Market, as there seemed to be a great deal of new stuff, clothes, electrical junk, etc (unfortunately, there was no spanish donut van or jam donut van). But after walking the first section, we then came to junk town, and boy, was there lots of junk.

On the way to the market, we encountered many of these little book stores. If they ever all fell in, that little old dude would not make it.

Entrance to the Flea market. John's getting so excited!!!

Here's one of the piles of junk. There could be a pot of gold under here and no one would ever know. Incidentally, everything on this pile is for sale!

On the way out of the flea market, John was approached by an old Korean dude, who had a little grasp of English. I mean, why else would you approach a white foreigner. He proceeded to ask John a series of questions, and then after finding that John was an American, started chanting "Korea number 1, America number 2". This was amusing in the beginning, but then when he would not leave us alone, it became annoying. He turned his attention to Clarence and gave him a big hello slap to the back. He then started talking Korean with me. After telling him that I wasn't Korean, he tried to kick me. That was really the signal to get away from this cooky little man. We devised a plan to run from him, as we were younger and almost sure that we were faster. The plan worked and we were rid of him, hazaaa!

A quick bowl of Bibimbap (stone bowl full of rice, vegetables and egg) and then it was off to Seodaemun Prison.

Seodaemun Prison was where the Japanese kept and tortured all the rebel Koreans that would not obey the Japanese Regime. The sites around the prison itself weren't so impressive, however the Koreans have gone to great lengths to re-created the torture that the Japanese inflicted on them during their occupation. There were many cells where you could see mannequins delivering various types of torture methods including sticking a needles under finger nails, water torture, small box torture, and when they ran out of inventive ways to torture, raping and beatings were always handy.

These were the main prison blocks.

I hear there are plenty of vacancies here.

Clarence being judged for his crimes. This was cool actually, presumably, Korean rebels got trialed here and when found guilty they would be dropped through a trap door that the chair was on. So the simulation was only a small drop, but enough to give you a jolt.

This was one of the memorials to honour those who lost their lives fighting for a free Korea.

We decided to visit the largest shopping centre in Korea in the evening, COEX Mall as it was known. The mall was pretty much the same as many big shopping centres back home, many shops, large foodcourts, large cinemas. Things that we don't have include an Aquarium, a Kimchi museum and a game area used to film video gaming competitions which is regularly broadcast on Korean television. No joke, we found a channel on Korean TV that constantly show geeks playing ... wait for it ... "Star Craft" against each other. I hate that game, although John took great delight in watching it. Anyway some of these strange areas in the mall was closed so we strolled outside to the nearby casino.

Yep, Seven Luck Casino. As with Japan, gambling is illegal in Korea. However, they've built a Casino to cater for their foreign tourists. So basically, no locals are allowed in the Casino unless their working and guests had to show their passports to get in. It was one floor, not very full, a few blackjack tables, roulette, pai-gow. Your normal gambling fare ... no poker though, which I was very disappointed about.

After the Casino, the boys thought that I had to have a taste of home and ushered me into the "Outback Steakhouse" across the street from the Casino. These Australian themed restaurants are populated all over America, Japan and Korea. I wondered why, there wasn't one in Australia and the answer is that its an American owned restaurant chain.

Notice how happy I am to be in the outback!

I ordered me a big steak after going months without a decent one. I wasn't disappointed with the size either, but for the prices we were paying, they should have been big. This steak here set me back about $35.

Then there was dessert. This was aptly name "The Chocolate Thunder from Down Under". The top was a marsh mellow type thing, followed by vanilla ice cream all sitting on a big piece of hedgehog and drizzled with chocolate sauce. To say it was rich would be an under-statement.

With our bellies content, we were going to explore the night life Seoul. There are only two main areas in Seoul where there is a concentration of clubs. The foreigner-plague area of Itaewon (we didn't really want to be surrounded by foreigners, plus it is a pretty shady part of town too - with famous landmark called Hookers Hill). The other is in the University area of Hongdae (Hongik University). This is where we wanted to be, so we put on our dancing shoes and headed off. We went into a club that was packed to the rafters. You could hardly move and would be standing shoulder to shoulder with all the other patrons. Non the less, the music was good (hip-hop) and we made the most of the situation. We ventured into another club later in the night, not so crowded, but the atmosphere was not as good. This club was also hip-hop and the patrons had come so often that they had they own dance moves to some songs. Strange indeed! It was about 5am when we made it back to our hotel for some deserved rest.

Day 4 in Seoul was drizzly and cold, perfect for nursing any hangover's from the previous night. However, not wanting to waste a day in Seoul, I wanted to venture out and Clarence was man enough to join me. John would continue to sleep like a hibernating bear and probably watch more Star craft TV.

I wanted to go and find a free Samulnori concert (traditional Korean folk dance and music). We tried but failed, the rain must have put off the dancers. We ended up around the Lotte World mall which has amongst many of its attractions, Lotte World and a folk museum. On a side note, the Lotte company seems to be the biggest corporation in Korea. They have a fast chain called Lotteria (which is also in Japan), several shopping malls, and several hotels. We didn't want to spoil John's fun and enter Lotte World without him and he has been raving on about it a long. So the folk museum was interesting in itself. We somewhere went in through the back entrance and realised that we never paid ... oh well.

There were many models of ancient Korean life. This was one of the Gyeongbokgung Palace and the many court people.

They also had life-size models depicting how it was to live during those times.

Finally, I had to get my name painted in Korean. It was really cool watching as he attached a dragon and a tiger to my name in Korean.

Korean BBQ was another one of those things on our list that we had to tick off. So, we headed back to the hotel, collected John and headed out to a nearby restaurant.

This place had a picture of a cow, so safe to say that they had beef and it was full of people, which is always a good sign for good food.

We proceeded inside and the waitress basically ordered for us and then cooked our beef for us. We must had looked really incompetent or she was scared that we would damage the equipment or ourselves. Here's the spread.

This beef soup with clear noodles was awesome. It was the closest tasting thing to Pho Bo (beef) I've had since coming to Japan.

We took a quick snap with our new adoptive mum before we headed off.

Next was the Myeongdong shopping district and a visit to the famous Myeongdong Cathedral. But on our way we encountered one of the more enjoyable and entertaining parts of our trip. It was some guys selling an ancient type royal sweets called Kkultarae. The making of these sweets was especially enjoyable. Here's a clip have fun watching.

Here's a closer look of what these royal courts cakes looked like. And believe me, they are dericious ... mmmm

A snap with the funniest Koreans we met.

Myeongdong Cathedral was on top of a hill in Seoul and is the first Roman Catholic Church built in the Republic of Korea. As it was Easter Sunday many people were just finishing their service. Unfortunately the front of the Cathedral was under some renovation at this time and we didn't get to see the real Cathedral in all its glory. Its funny, but I never thought Korea was a big Catholic nation, but after seeing all the bright red neon crosses from the top of Korea, my mind was changed. About 30% of Korea's population is apparently Catholic/Christian.

Inside the Cathedral

A new inovation in churches. Plama TV's so that everyone can see the service, even if your stuck behind a pillar.