To celebrate the New Year and take advantage of our 3-day weekend Amanda and I traveled to Seoul where we met up with our good friends Becky and Nick. The four of us split a room at the Best Western New Seoul Hotel, the only place with a couple beds left open for the holiday. The train ride up to Seoul was really nice. Our friend Kang helped us buy tickets for the "bullet" KTX Train and even dropped us off and picked us up from the brand-new station just outside of Jinyeong. The KTX Train was very nice and clean, and very fast. Amanda said the fastest she saw us going was 302km/h! (188mph). We traveled from one corner of Korea to the other in 2 hours 40 minutes. Not too shabby.
We arrived late Friday morning, December 31, and were able to check into our room a couple hours early. Amanda and Becky did some heavy clothes shopping that afternoon while Nick took a nap (because he didn't sleep the night before) and I went looking for the HOTTRACKS bookstore and art supply store. The goal was for me to fulfill my Christmas gift from Amanda by finding the store and buying myself some nice sketching pens. Well, it turned out my destination wasn't actually a store... You can ready the story here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40346905@N08/5328468765/in/set-72157625633068163/
That evening we all got ready and headed out to find some food and beer before the big show. We first went to a Texas Bar, and paid way too much for "western" style food that came in a Korean sized portion. After a couple beers we set out to find another bar closer to where the action would be. There was a plaza only about 6 blocks from our hotel where people gathered for a gong-ringing, instead of a ball-dropping. We found the WA Bar, which again had western-style dishes at Korean-sized portions. At 11:40 we decided to make our way to the plaza just down the street. Little did we know, EVERYONE was just making their way to the plaza. Apparently no one arrived early so, so the walk was just one gigantic mob of people. After being pushed and shoved, and then shoved and pushed (with a little of my own elbowing). The singing stopped and everyone started counting down. At least we think that's what they were doing; I don't yet know my Korean numbers. Only 5 or so numbers were counted down and then... nothing. We didn't even hear the gong because it was so noisy from all the people. Oh well, at least we could say we were part of the action.
Saturday we traveled via the extensive metro/subway to the Itaewon district, a large foriegner neighborhood. We picked up some Kirkland-brand cheese, a couple boxes of Mac-n-Cheese, some pistaccios and cashews, and chocolate. Mmm yum yum. After spending a bit in a bookstore called: What The Book, we returned to our hotel. That night we all went for a walk along the man-made stream that runs East-West about 10 feet below street level. We discovered a neat little gallery space tucked underneath one of the bridges overhead that displayed adolescent photography.
Sunday was spent sightseeing through the Bukchon Hanok village, a very famous neighborhood where all the homes are built in traditional style construction. It was so peaceful and quiet, one of the best places we saw. We also visited the Changdeokgung Palace, where I took way too many photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40346905@N08/sets/72157625751146290/
All in all it was a great weekend spent with close friends!
