Just South of North Korea

Last week 4 of us took a little swim across the ocean to South Korea. We got there around 5:30 p.m. and a van took us to our room about 1-1/2 hours away. The traffic was God awful. Everybody in their little Kia’s and Hyundai’s drive like mad. And you’ve gotta look out for the Daewoo buses. It was a near death experience every time we hit the streets.

Luckily these automobile thrills were cheap. A 5 minute taxi ride in the city costs $2. A 25 minute ride on the freeway cost us $4 a person.

We were there for 4 days, 3 nights. Here are the first 2 days:

Day 1:
Barely survived the ride from the airport. Ate some good Korean nabe (boiled beef then wrapped in lettuce with rice balls) and kimchii. Then we checked into our hotel and went out for a few drinks. Our hotel's name was: Gang Hang Hotel (there are just too many jokes you can do with that name so I’ll leave it alone)

Day 2:
Our trip to Korea included a 1 day guided tour on a van with a family of 4. Only one problem with the tour, it was all in Japanese. The tour guide was also very organized as well. Good thing I brought the tour itinerary since she left hers at home and didn’t know where we were going. First we had breakfast, which was clear Korean noodles and kimchii. Next, we went to visit a palace which was closed on Tuesdays (and ironically it was Tuesday that day) so we took pictures around it. Then we went to another palace and lucky for us, we got to join a 1-1/2 hour tour in Japanese. We just wandered off taking pictures and every so often getting told to hurry back with the group by some Korean guard dude. There are a few palaces in the city and they are all really neat. The one thing they all have in common is at some point in time, they were burned down at least once by the Japanese. I didn’t realize how much of pyromaniacs the Japanese were until I visited Seoul. If it was burnable, the Japanese lit it on fire. Now in Korea, a Japanese person caught with a match has to do 10 – 20 years…. a Bic lighter is life. While wandering around the palace grounds, we found a few Japanese people hiding in corners rubbing sticks together.


Then we went to lunch and ate some bibimbap. After that we went shopping for a little bit in this area I like to call Korea’s Little Tiajuana. There were all these small shops w/ rip off brand goods for sell and little shop owners you could haggle with.



After that we went to a Korea History museum. It was interesting. Then we went to another smaller palace. After that we ate more Korea BBQ which was good.

Then we headed back to the hotel and our tour was over. While we were on the tour, we eyeballed a few Outback steakhouses (which there are 0 of in Japan). Steak?!?! So that night we went back into the heart of the city with one goal: Outback. The food was SO Good! Honestly, they could’ve fed me meat from a cow that died at 91 from old age and wasn’t found until 10 days after its death, and it still would’ve tasted like the best god damn steak ever. It has been so long since I had a steak and baked potato. Hell, I was at the point where I’d eat Mad Cow.