Seoul - Food & Eternal Cloudiness of the Jetlagged Mind

Continuing our time in Seoul, on Monday morning Paul woke up early and got Angel-in-us coffee. After getting up and around, we took the train to Seongsu dong. We had heard this was a fun and youthful "up and coming" neighborhood to explore. Unfortunately, we found that nothing opens early in Seoul. There are a million cafes but many don't open until 11am or even early afternoon.  Not a good match for jetlag! We did find a highly rated cafe, Onion, that opened early enough so we made that our first stop. We had drinks and pastries in a neat converted building. It was concrete and brick minimalism, with interesting nooks and crannies to sit in. There was some outdoor space as well, but it was a rainy, dreary morning so we stayed indoors. Paul's vanilla bean latte was good and not too sweet.

David enjoying some morning snacks at Onion.

Onion grounds in an old industrial space.

After leaving Onion, we walked around the neighborhood a bit. We might not have been in the right area, or maybe it was too early, but it wasn't super exciting. Seemed like a quiet residential neighborhood. We made our way to the river, where it was incredibly foggy. We walked along the riverfront path, at times unable to even see across the river. The path was quiet on a chilly rainy morning, but is a great outdoor amenity for the city.

We turned back into the neighborhood, and went to a shopping area called Common Ground. It had just opened, so it was quiet, and it looked like maybe they were filming something in the courtyard. It's a neat space, with stacked shipping containers with stores and restaurants. We hung out for a bit before setting out to look for lunch.

The Han River shrouded in fog.

Lots of the Han River has bike/ped trails and parks.

There are a lot of markets in Korea. These mostly are for groceries and random household supplies.

Shipping container shops at Common Ground.

We found a nearby street that appeared to be a Chinatown area. It was lively, with lots going on. We had lunch at Songhua Shanxi Cut Noodles (송화산시도삭면). It was a small and popular restaurant, so we had about a 15 minute wait to be seated. The food was great, especially the noodles and soup dumplings. We also saw a direct example of Korea's plastic surgery culture, as a young (high school age?) woman at the table next to us had clearly had a very recent "coming of age" nose job.

After lunch we took the train to Dongdaemun design plaza. It's a neat futuristic building, part gathering space, part conference center, part tourist attraction, but it's not really clear what to do there. After walking around the long white space-age hallways and part of the roof, we set off walking toward Gwangjang market. It was drizzling again (our time in Korea was quite rainy), so it was nice to tuck inside the covered market. It's a touristy food market, and was quite crowded. We walked around the market for a bit but didn't get anything, before heading back to the subway.

The line to eat at Songhua Shanxi Cut Noodles.

Paul with his noodle soup!

Dongdaemun Design Plaza. 

Hechi is the mascot of Seoul. He's had a very "Cartoon Network" redesign since 10 years ago.

Just ginormous Hechi things!

Gwangjang Market near the city center.

We took the train to Insadong, the pleasant neighborhood just north of out Hotel. We were in the mood for a little snack and David had been craving patbingsu (shaved ice dessert) and we found some at a place with the very long name of Damjangyeope Gukhwaccot Annyeong Insadong, which had an equally long Korean name referring to the flowers on the wall outside the store (담장옆에국화꽃CCOT 안녕인사동점). From there we walked back to our hotel and relaxed while trying to wait out the rain. Finally we went for dinner, walking to the south through the Myeongdong pedestrian area to dinner at kkanbu chicken myeongdong (깐부치킨 명동점). Myeongdong is interesting because it has a lot of foreign tourists. We saw a lot of Japanese people, and some white people. It's a nice urban environment and quite lively.

Bingsu and other Korean desserts.

Last meal in Seoul; KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) and some tteokbokki!

The next morning we woke up super early (4:45am) and took a taxi to the airport. While almost everywhere in Seoul took credit cards (even American Express), we had pulled out some Korean won on the first day from an ATM, and had 55,000 won (about $41) left. The taxi came out to 54,500 won. Perfect planning! We had a pastry at Paris Baguette at the airport before boarding our flight to Singapore.

That wrapped up the first stage of our trip. We'd been to Seoul before (David had been twice before this trip), and noticed a few changes. We saw very, very few people smoking, and only a few people vaping. This is a nice change from a decade ago when it seemed like more people (especially older people) smoked cigarettes in public. One thing we did see a big increase of was people staring at their phones. While this is of course common in the US too, in Seoul it has been taken to a whole new level. Essentially 100% of people on the subway are looking at their phone, and many people when walking down the street. At some busier intersections the sidewalks have lights embedded into them that turn red and green, so people who are staring at their phones don't walk straight into the path of a car.

One other thing we noticed was more improvements in urban planning, but it's still a bit of a mix. Most of Seoul is very walkable and of course transit-friendly, but there are some extremely wide roads, including right outside our hotel. We utilized the bus system a lot more than our last trip - most buses essentially operated as bus rapid transit (BRT) with lanes completely separated from cars. We were excited to check out the city planning of our next stop, Singapore.