While not quite to the scale of Tokyo Station, Seoul Station very quickly reminded us that we were back in one of the biggest cities in the world. We navigated our way to the Seoul Metro and pretty easily found our hostel's building, thanks to the Dunkin' Donuts marking the entrance. That's right. Rampant American commercialization seems to have been a significant side effect of the Korean War. The typical international chains (McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks) are joined in Korea by the likes of Quizno's, Dunkin', Auntie Anne's pretzels, and of course, Outback. This visual Westernization bore a striking contrast to the lack of English spoken (or admittedly spoken) in the country.
Our hostel, the Hongdae Guesthouse, was located in the area of the city surrounding Hongik University. As a result, the hostel lay at one of Seoul's ground zeros for bars, clubs, and restaurants. We were located on the 3rd floor of a building that seemed like it should have been housing offices instead of hostels. We knew we were in for an interesting experience upon entering the hostel's office and being greeted by its proprietor, Mary.
Mary's office could be kindly described as cluttered. A more accurate visualization can be obtained by imagining the result of an indoor tornado. Mary herself was a short Korean firecracker, probably in her late 50s or early 60s. She immediately requested we sit down and assured us not to worry about the roof. We were slightly puzzled as to 1) where to sit down, as the clutter enveloped all potential seating apparati and 2) why, exactly, we needed to be reassured about the roof. We gingerly scooped some of the clutter out of the way and were relieved to hear that the roof assurance was part of some idiomatic Korean. Mary then proceeded to engage Jose in all matter of conversation, flailing about the room and leaving us all with puzzled, slightly amused, wide-eyed expressions. Once she found out about Jose's love of music, she determined we all needed to create a street band to earn some money for our travels. She made plans to head out to the music store so Jose could obtain a guitar and insisted our band be called "Jose and Girls." By this point, we were all wondering what, exactly, she was on. Eventually and with no particular concern for order, rents were paid and we were led to our rooms. The rooms were pretty unique for a hostel and included ensuite bathrooms, water coolers, stovetops, and a sleeping loft. The loft would have been especially cool had it not been designed for oompa loompas. The ceiling might have reached 5 feet at its zenith, less on its soffited edges. We thus dubbed it "The Bat Cave."
We ate dinner, ironically enough, at a Japanese restaurant and spent the evening wandering between the multitude of bars at our disposal. We eventually ended up at a place called Zen, which we liked enough to return to a few nights later. Aside from the infinite number of drinking establishments, Seoul proved dangerous for its outrageously cheap alcohol. We may have been shelling out several thousand Won, but in reality that meant that full glasses of Johnny Walker ran a couple of bucks. Unfortunately, South Korean brewers could stand to take a few suggestions. The three primary beers - Hite, Max, and the interestingly named "Cass Fresh"- left something to be desired. At least they were cheap. Anyway, combine infinite bars and clubs with dirt cheap alcohol and seemingly nonexistent closing times, and you have a recipe for some sorts of disaster, at least of the cirrhosal variety. We ended the night at a club called Cocoon advertising no cover for foreigners. Cocoon provided several levels of pounding music, gesticulating 20-somethings, and green lasers. The end of the night found Marina, Katherine and yes, me, on the front stage.
I woke up in pain the next afternoon, not only from a less than friendly hangover, but also from a pulsating left foot. I'd managed to do something to it while partying in front of all of Cocoon, and it was none too happy to be of any ambulatory assistance. I limped to afternoon breakfast with everyone and then decided to self-prescribe bed rest in the Bat Cave for the rest of the day. By evening, I was feeling a little better and ventured out to dinner with Jose, Marina, and Marlayna. We ate at a modified Korean barbecue that everyone seemed to enjoy a lot. We then began an expedition in search of a famous Beatles-themed bar we'd been told to visit. Once again, we found ourselves searching for a needle in haystack, the job all the more difficult for all of the Koreans who would giggle and run away when asked if they could help us out. After probably half an hour of searching, we finally found the basement bar.
Beginning to feel sick again and pathetically ordering waters from the bar, I knew I would have to call it an early night. However, I did not do so before we had one of the more entertaining encounters of the trip. A very very very (very) drunk middle-aged Korean man was swaying rather radically and precariously on his bar stool across the room from us. We were soon enrapt in watching the man's friend and the bartender attempt to dress the man in his sportcoat and lead him out of the bar. The gentleman, however, had absolutely no intention of leaving the bar on anything other than his own terms, and no one else was very much inclined to force him. There ensued a delicate ballet (almost literally) that soon swept us up with it when we became locked in the gaze of the drunkard. The man took a particular liking to Jose and babbled to him in drunken Korean while attempting to dance with him. We were all hysterically laughing, slightly nervous, annoyed, sad, and absolutely bewildered at once. Laughing because the sight of this drunkard's affection for Jose was absurdly ridiculous. Nervous because we weren't sure what the guy would do next. Annoyed because what began as funny became slightly irritating after half an hour's time. Sad because we wondered what must have happened in this man's life to bring him to such a state. And bewildered because none of us had ever seen drunkenness quite to this level before. Finally, Jose and the bartender were able to persuade the man to leave, peace returned to the bar, the Korean kids sitting beside us fled, and the embarrassed bartender bought several rounds of shots for our table. My next day would prove to be just as absurd, but under completely different circumstances. I'll chronicle my solo adventure out to the DMZ all by itself in the next post.
In any case, Seoul involved some more drinking, more dancing at Cocoon, more eating, a casino night (in which I barely took part thanks to my horrendous lack of luck and poker skills...and oh, funds) and a particularly entertaining trip to the enormous Coex mall complex. The Coex mall comes close to rivalling the megamalls of Dubai, if it lacks that city's penchant for theming. In any case, the mall boasts, among other things, possibly the largest book store I've ever seen, an enormous movie theater, and an aquarium. We took turns at all three. Aquariums can, admittedly, be dull. Once you've seen a few, you've seen them all. Except this one. The Coex aquarium was, to put it lightly, weird. One room was dedicated to displaying fish in various household appliances and fixtures - toilets, refrigerators, microwaves, even water beds. We hit the shark tank just in time to catch the tail end of a shark feeding...being carried out by Peter Pan and Captain Hook. Among the aquarium's inhabitants were bats, bunnies, and monkeys (thereby forcing us all to redefine our notion of "aquarium") and a two-headed turtle who, as the description below him read "had a tough childhood"...clearly, all of the other turtles made fun of him and left him out of their turtle games. To top things off, the snack bar offered up peanut butter roasted squid legs, or something along those lines.
Confident that someone had drugged our soft drinks after the aquarium experience, we decided to catch a movie. The only one playing at a reasonable time for us and offering enough seats was...drumroll...My Bloody Valentine. I would not dare ruin the plot for those of you who have not seen this cinematic masterpiece. Those of you who have seen it will understand why I am positive that it will win Best Picture in 2010. My Bloody Valentine, in a room full of Koreans judging American cinema...we ate dinner at the mall's TGI Fridays, gulping down two barrels (literally, barrel-shaped giganto-pitchers) of beer to soften the blow.
We left Seoul on the 27th to return to Busan by train, catch the Beetle jetfoil back to Fukuoka, Japan, and then catch a train to our next destination, Hiroshima. It was just in the nick of time for the sake of everyone's livers.
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