So, Seoul

I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. Susan Sontag

Seoul has never been on my list. In my mind, Seoul has always meant boy bands, plastic surgery, fashion shopping, shiny surfaces, and big screen advertising; all of which are in my personal seventh circle of hell. I kept saying to Mark, do we have to go there? Can you go to South Korea and not see Seoul? The answer: it’s a transport hub, you’re going there anyway. See if it changes your mind.

I have to say that after having been in human-scaled Gyeongju, when we popped up out of the Seoul train station and saw all the big glass buildings, I felt like Mary Tyler Moore arriving in the big city! Big city indeed, it’s the 4th largest metropolitan area in the world. Everything is huge, spaces are vast. Going to somewhere across town is a day trip.

Not every vista is dystopian, it’s surrounded by mountains and there’s a ton of great parks.

Modern Seoul is all shiny and standard issue, but what I liked best is finding vestiges of its past self. Cities are palimpsests, you can never entirely erase what went before. There are always traces.

I think the best part about Seoul is ditching down alleyways to find the hidden places. This was our favorite cafe.

It’s an event here to dress in traditional Hanok garb and go to the former palaces to walk around and take selfies.

Boy band boys are big, big stars. We stayed near the corporate headquarters for a main K-pop label. Everyday we were treated to selfie swarms in front of the nondescript glass international style skyscraper and especially in front of any image of the stars. I found it incomprehensible. They’re corporate creations, The Monkees meets Brave New World.

In other worship, temples abound

But the thing I’ll most associate with Seoul is iced americano coffee in plastic cups, to go. There’s not much cafe culture here. Koreans work more hours than anyone and the government has proposed increasing the workweek. Drink it down and get back on it.

Lest you think this stop was a dud, let me assure you that we’re delighted to have visited Seoul. This is why we travel: to see how people live and arrange their lives, to get a firsthand look at what they think is important, what gets saved and what gets destroyed. To find out what it’s like, not to get more of what I like. Iced americanos are now tied up with my understanding of what it is to be Korean in a way that statistics on working hours never could.

Random foreign words are popular for store names in Korea. I should do a whole photo collection of them. This is a jewelry shop called Leave! Um ok. We’re outta here. Next up: Hanoi!

Cheers,

Maer