As I was saying, today I got up terribly early due to the jetlag, so I was able to see the smoggy sunrise from my apartment. The weather app listed a frightful -4°C, although by the time I left a few hours later the temperature listed a comparatively balmy 1°C! I’m getting a lot of use out of my Icelandic tech jacket!
This morning I was booked on a Korean cooking class, happily located only a 15-min walk from my apartment. When I got to the meeting point, outside Mangwon station, I met the nine other people who were signed up. When we were sharing where we all were from, and I said San Sebastian, to my shock and disbelief everybody in the group immediately responded with variations of “OMG I love San Sebastian!”. Australians, Americans, Singaporeans, Indonesians had all either visited or at least heard of the place (hilariously, only the two Dutch girls had no reaction). It was like that time in Chiang Rai when the tour guide said his favorite Spanish town was San Sebastian before I’d even said anything. I can’t quite wrap my head around our town becoming a global point of reference!
Eventually our guide/teacher for the class met up with us and took us on a brief tour of the nearby Mangwon market. This was the first time I felt I was truly seeing local Seoul, where all the neighbors were going about their business, us being the only foreigners around. There were stalls selling all sorts of foods, from live octopi to chili powder to massive mounds of garlic to blood sausages to… At one point I saw a pile of pig ears and made an involuntary “Ewwww” face before I noticed the butcher staring me straight in the eye. I tried to look apologetic, like I’m sure those pig ears are delicious sir all the best to you!
As we walked, gawking at the stalls and being unceremoniously knocked aside by the locals when we blocked the way, our guide explained what each ingredient was used for or the way her family made kimchi together once a year. We were all impressed to learn that they have a separate fridge custom-made to store kimchi! At one point our guide asked everyone if we spoke Korean; when it was my turn, I said I’d learned to read it in preparation for the trip, and only when everybody went “Huh?!” did I realize that that’s not a normal thing to do…
Eventually we made it back to her home, also in a “real” residential building, so to speak, and learned how to make pajeon (a sort of pancake made by mixing batter and vegetables, looks more like an omelette except it’s crispy), bibimbap (the base is just rice, so the trick is in learning to season all the garnishes like mushrooms, carrots, and more that I cannot name), dakgakbi (marinated chicken) and doenjang jjigae (which is a kind of stew I think? Our version was pretty much miso soup, which is just as well as it served as accompaniment to the meatier dishes).
The cooking was very directed, which is understandable considering the size of the group, so in the end all the dishes looked exactly the same -and we got to eat them! They were all delicious, and I came out super full! It was a fun group too, nice people and we all wished each other a nice trip before parting ways.
Rested and fed, I took the subway to Cheonggyecheon Plaza, to see one of the sights I was most looking forward to in Seoul: the Cheonggyecheon Stream! I first saw in Sense8, the Wachowskis’ Netflix show, although I’m sure it appears in lots of K-dramas. It looks cool but knowing its history makes it even cooler: there used to be a stream crossing much of Seoul horizontally, but over time it was covered with concrete before they built a monster highway all through the city. Only twenty years ago, the city undid the monstrosity, broke out the concrete, unearthed the historic stream, and turned it into a walkable oasis in the middle of the city! How cool is that?
Sure enough, at the beginning of the walk, there were multiple people shooting videos with gear of varying professional quality (I may have walked into a commercial or a photoshoot!), this being the section that looks most modern and stylish. A little bit further, the design changes into something more traditional, with grassy banks and crossing stones laid across the stream.
Once you’re walking along, you kind of have to decide when you want to be done, because the whole thing is a staggering 8 km long -out of the question to walk the whole thing, even if you’re not as tired as I am already! I think I lasted only 20 minutes, because I wanted to go to Myeongdong, the shopping district in the center of Seoul.
Unlike big shopping quarters in other cities, Myeongdong is more of a tight network of narrow streets than a big avenue. The usual multinational big box brands are conspicuously absent, the shops being local chains specialized in clothing, souvenirs, or, more than anything, skincare. The main generalist chains, where you can buy skincare products from different brands, are Olive Young and All Mask Story, although there are more; then there’s the brand-owned shops that sell their own products, like Innisfree, Nature Republic, Laneige, and many many more.
To make matters worse, every one of the above has not one, not two, but multiple stores right there in the compact quarter of Myeongdong: I swear there’s an Olive Young in every block! One of them is the massive flagship store, but the others aren’t small either, so it made walking around very confusing because I kept going “Have I already been here or is that yet another Olive Young?”. Look at the two floors of this one:
I wasn’t buying anything quite yet; I had a frankly weak hot chocolate at a cafe, which I mention only to point out that I witnessed first hand something that I’d read about: in Korea, people mark their table at a coffee shop as occupied when they go to the restroom or to order… by leaving their mobile phone on the table. Here, it means the table’s taken. In Europe, it would be the phone that was taken!
I had another appointment to make, this one to see Nanta, a Stomp-like comedy musical show that has been running for like thirty years, like The Mousetrap in London. It’s extremely touristy fare (there was only one family in the audience that I heard speak Korean), with most people coming from other Asian countries, but it’s dialogue-free so it’s one stage show that foreigners can enjoy in Seoul without having to speak the language. At first I found it rather simple -while the percussion is fun, the humor is most basic, for people of all ages and nationalities- but I warmed up to it, especially because the children in the audience were howling with laughter and their enthusiasm was infectious.
On the way out, I gathered my courage and made it into what I thought (but wasn’t) the biggest Olive Young and finally committed to buying a bunch of stuff. Since there’s so much to choose from, my strategy was to pay attention to the four or five brands that I recognized, and then see if their products were on sale. I got a big pack of face masks (these will make great omiyage for people at work, plus at 15,000 won for a pack of 15 it comes down to just €0.70 each -if you buy them separate they can be 3,000 each), sunscreen (intended as a present but I may have to keep it for myself, if the sun continues to shine like it does) and a moisturizer that wasn’t on sale but still cost way cheaper than it would in Spain.
(Of note: like many countries, Korea offers tax refunds to foreigners, which usually requires the store to print out a form that you then need to submit at customs to get the VAT back. However, many stores here can do the refund automatically, meaning you simply don’t pay the tax at all. Convenient!)
With the skincare haul item finally crossed off my list (finally, I say on my second day), I was tempted to go back to the apartment but decided to try my luck at having an early dinner at Kyoja, a famous noodle and mandu restaurant in Myeongdong. I found it easily enough, but there was a veritable stream of people walking in and I could see the place was packed. However, because traveling solo has its advantages, I was able to get a single spot at a shared table, where a waitress brought me a menu, stood watching me while I made my choice (to be fair, there were only two items on the menu: the noodle soup, or the mandu, Korean dumplings, which I chose), and made me pay in advance on the spot.
My dumplings were served to me almost before the waitress disappeared from my view: a massive plate with ten large pork and herb dumplings and a side of kimchi. I looked around for chopsticks, but although the table had water, glasses, napkins and sauces, there were none to be found. Then, as if through a vision, the factoid came to me from something I’d read that in places like this, the chopsticks can be found in a drawer under the table, and sure enough there they were!
The dumplings were delicious, so flavorful and soft, and the kimchi was the first one I’ve had so far that actually burns; on the subway ride later I would still feel my lips tingling.
That was it for my exploration of Myeongdong! A fun place to visit once, I would say, to drink in the crowds and the lights and the shops and everything, but I wouldn’t want to be based here for the whole trip.
Tomorrow’s plan: I’m thinking Suwon?
This Is A Lake 