Day 2 in Seoul

February 16th,
Today it was freezing! It was approximately 18 degrees. Kev and I went to the Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, our usual, and decided to part ways for the day. I just wasn’t brave enough to bare the cold for an entire day, and he wanted to see the city, so I went back to the hostel and he walked around and saw the town!


I spent the first hour playing on the computer and sitting next to the heater in our room. Soon after, the hostel-mates started congregating in the main living space outside my room. I had my door open, so I was listening to them laugh and talk. One of them said, “Hey we’re going to lunch if you want to come with us.” I said, “sure,” and off we went!

We ended up at a traditional Korean restaurant where we sat on the ground on little pillows and grilled our food in a small grill in the middle of the table! There were 6 of us all together: 2 Koreans: MiJeoung, and Mr Bong (the owner of the hostel), 1 Chinese guy from Australian named Young, and 2 French guys. Thibault and Julien. We had a blast all getting to know each other and ate a communal meal of duck! Yep, duck! And believe it or not, I feasted on it like it was the only thing I had eaten in weeks! It was actually very good! I asked Mr Bong how to say “More water please” and he told me. I waited patiently for the server to come back over to the table and Mr. Bong said, “raise your hand and say, Yokiya!” So, I did. He quickly laughed at me and said, “you have to yell it!” I looked at him like he was crazy and he said, “Really, yell it.” So, I did! It was such a funny experience to yell for a server in a really nice restaurant!

We went back to the hostel and played some pool in the downstairs bar. Kevin finally got back and we spent some time with our French and Korean hostel mates! Kevin mostly talked music with the French guy, Julien, while I uploaded pictures and talked to MiJeoung about Korea.

At about 7pm, the 5 of us headed out to see the Seoul Tower! It's basically a tower on the top of a mountain that overlooks the entire city! Mind you, Seoul is the 2nd largest city in the world, so you can imagine how amazing the view was!


When we got up there, we walked along the fence and noticed pad locks were hanging from the entire fence. After looking closer, we realized that Korean couples had come up to the Seoul Tower and locked 2 locks together, written a note and attached it, and then threw the key! Apparently it is a valentine's tradition here. I LOVED IT! MiJeoung, our Korean friend, translated one of the notes for us. It was a very sweet note, but it began with "Dear pig," which apparently is an endearing term in Korea. Go figure, huh?!


After the Seoul Tower we took the subway and then walked the town and found a great hole in the wall restaurant for some good old fashioned Korean food! mmmm.
Just got back to the hostel and cranked up the heater! I'm off to lala land. Sweet dreams!

Anyehaseo!

Jill