Day 3: Observations of Seoul, Part 1
Today my aunt wanted to take me to visit the Seoul Museum of History. I think she felt bad that I was travelling alone and didn't have any younger relatives available to accompany and show me around the city. It was a sentiment shared by my other aunts who had children my age but who were unavailable to act as a guide because of work. In reality though, I really enjoyed and preferred travelling alone as it made me in control of my own schedule. I think it would be a little awkward too to all of sudden be paired with someone I really didn't know even if they were relatives. I found Seoul to be very tourist friendly and an easy place to travel. Mind you, I know Korean also (albeit less than I would like) so that certainly helped along the way. It was partly my fault though for my aunt feeling that way because I never explained to her how much I pre-planned my entire trip. For some reason it never crossed my mind until later to show her my Lonely Planet Book, my itineraries, GPS, maps, and the research I had done prior to coming to Seoul. The museum wasn’t on my itinerary but I didn’t mind going because it was a nice way to spend some time with my aunt who was fun to be with.
Our intention was to take the bus to the museum (I haven’t taken any buses yet at this point) but it was also within semi-walking distance. We walked through Yeong-Chun Market which is like a long alleyway market filled with all kinds of shops and food vendors. Think of it as a small Namdaemun Market.
There are several wholesale vendors that sell foods like 떡(rice cakes) and fried donuts that are eventually resold around Seoul. You can find a lot of produce ranging from all kinds of vegetables, to red and white meat and all sorts of marine life from the ocean. The manner in which the food was sold and consumed, all out in the open street vendor style, felt like a real glimpse of every day Korea.
My aunt and I decided to just walk the entire way to the Museum and that’s when I was surprised to find that places like Gyeongbokgung and Cheonggyecheon were not as far away as I had thought they were. It would still be an ambitious walk but it was a doable one for sure on a nice day. It turned out to be a very warm day again but the walk was nice as I got to pass by many of Seoul’s store fronts. Everywhere I went in Seoul, the stores that stood out as being the most common to my Western eyes were coffee shops, pizza places, chicken places, places that sold very cute socks out front and cellphone stores. The most common chains that stood out were Dunkin Donuts (they were all over), Starbucks, Paris Baguette and Lotteria.
On the way, I passed the small palace of Gyeonghuigung. I had this on my itinerary as they hold Taekwondo exhibits here every Wednesday and Saturday but the timing just didn’t work out. I could see many of them practicing in their gi’s but the demonstration wasn’t for another couple of hours so left it for another day (I never ended up returning though).
For whatever reason, I didn’t end up taking any pictures while I was at the Museum so I decided that for the remainder of this blog post, I would talk about some of the things I observed about Seoul while I was there.
When it came to subway seating, I found people in Seoul were a little more hasty in going for those empty subway seats. I think in Toronto, people don’t seem to mind as much if they have to stand. Having said that, I found people in Seoul were very, very generous in offering their seat when a visibly older person got on the train. In addition, the ends of each train have designated seating areas just for seniors and I found that that this rule was very much respected. I think it has to do with the fact that Koreans respect their elders much more than in other parts of the world.
After 23 years, I was reacquainted with what I always referred to as the subway “gum” ahjumma. One of the things I remembered when I visited Korea when I was little was this ahjumma who would go from train to train and throw packs of gum in peoples’ laps. At the time, I thought how awesome that they give free gum but then my uncle said you have to pay for it as the ahjumma returns to collect either the unopened gum or money for it. While I was in Seoul, I think I ran into her twice. It obviously wasn’t the same ahjumma from 23 years ago (or maybe it was?) but it looks like the tradition continued.
Another thing I saw were salesmen selling items on the train. These salesmen would typically wheel around a cart with whatever featured item they were selling (it ranged from clips to close food bags, belts, ear wax pickers with light, clothes racks…) and situate themselves in the middle of the train and do their promotional pitch and then wait for any buyers. If there weren’t any, they would move on to the next train. Selling on the train is actually forbidden. One time I saw an instance where a salesman readied himself for the sales pitch and before he could literally utter 5 words, he abruptly stopped as a subway security guard rushed from out of no where with a camera and proceeded to film him and his items and then follow him off the train. The odd thing was that not a single word was muttered between the two. The salesman stopped talking and kept looking down avoiding eye contact as if he wasn’t just caught red handed and the guard just kept filming him until the train got to the next stop. It felt very awkward. I saw many signs of Koreans working very hard but most likely not making a lot of money in the process. I told my aunt about the amazing plastic clip I saw being sold on the subways that came in the shape of a carrot that you could use to close bags (like opened chip bags or a cellophane bags). She then told me that she bought those before and they didn’t work well relative to the more expensive real ones you get in stores.
Cellphone capabilities seemed so much better in Seoul when compared with Toronto. Not only was cell signal available in the subways underground, I found it somewhat common to see Koreans on the subways watching TV on their cellphones. Not fair. Many of their cellphones are equipped with pull out antennas for watching TV. When I was using the washroom in Yeouido, the person in one of the stalls was doing his business and I could hear he was watching TV on his cellphone also. What was funny was I heard Ji Jin-hee’s voice and then recognized that the guy was watching the final episode of Dong-Yi that I just saw the night before. I felt like yelling out “전하 납시오!…” (His Majesty is entering!…) ^^. I saw a lot of people using Android Smartphones (in particular, the Samsung Galaxy S), iPhones and dumbphones (but even their dumbphones had TV capabilities). Rarely did I see any Blackberrys.
P.S. Happy New Year.
Our intention was to take the bus to the museum (I haven’t taken any buses yet at this point) but it was also within semi-walking distance. We walked through Yeong-Chun Market which is like a long alleyway market filled with all kinds of shops and food vendors. Think of it as a small Namdaemun Market.
There are several wholesale vendors that sell foods like 떡(rice cakes) and fried donuts that are eventually resold around Seoul. You can find a lot of produce ranging from all kinds of vegetables, to red and white meat and all sorts of marine life from the ocean. The manner in which the food was sold and consumed, all out in the open street vendor style, felt like a real glimpse of every day Korea.
My aunt and I decided to just walk the entire way to the Museum and that’s when I was surprised to find that places like Gyeongbokgung and Cheonggyecheon were not as far away as I had thought they were. It would still be an ambitious walk but it was a doable one for sure on a nice day. It turned out to be a very warm day again but the walk was nice as I got to pass by many of Seoul’s store fronts. Everywhere I went in Seoul, the stores that stood out as being the most common to my Western eyes were coffee shops, pizza places, chicken places, places that sold very cute socks out front and cellphone stores. The most common chains that stood out were Dunkin Donuts (they were all over), Starbucks, Paris Baguette and Lotteria.
On the way, I passed the small palace of Gyeonghuigung. I had this on my itinerary as they hold Taekwondo exhibits here every Wednesday and Saturday but the timing just didn’t work out. I could see many of them practicing in their gi’s but the demonstration wasn’t for another couple of hours so left it for another day (I never ended up returning though).
For whatever reason, I didn’t end up taking any pictures while I was at the Museum so I decided that for the remainder of this blog post, I would talk about some of the things I observed about Seoul while I was there.
When it came to subway seating, I found people in Seoul were a little more hasty in going for those empty subway seats. I think in Toronto, people don’t seem to mind as much if they have to stand. Having said that, I found people in Seoul were very, very generous in offering their seat when a visibly older person got on the train. In addition, the ends of each train have designated seating areas just for seniors and I found that that this rule was very much respected. I think it has to do with the fact that Koreans respect their elders much more than in other parts of the world.
After 23 years, I was reacquainted with what I always referred to as the subway “gum” ahjumma. One of the things I remembered when I visited Korea when I was little was this ahjumma who would go from train to train and throw packs of gum in peoples’ laps. At the time, I thought how awesome that they give free gum but then my uncle said you have to pay for it as the ahjumma returns to collect either the unopened gum or money for it. While I was in Seoul, I think I ran into her twice. It obviously wasn’t the same ahjumma from 23 years ago (or maybe it was?) but it looks like the tradition continued.
Another thing I saw were salesmen selling items on the train. These salesmen would typically wheel around a cart with whatever featured item they were selling (it ranged from clips to close food bags, belts, ear wax pickers with light, clothes racks…) and situate themselves in the middle of the train and do their promotional pitch and then wait for any buyers. If there weren’t any, they would move on to the next train. Selling on the train is actually forbidden. One time I saw an instance where a salesman readied himself for the sales pitch and before he could literally utter 5 words, he abruptly stopped as a subway security guard rushed from out of no where with a camera and proceeded to film him and his items and then follow him off the train. The odd thing was that not a single word was muttered between the two. The salesman stopped talking and kept looking down avoiding eye contact as if he wasn’t just caught red handed and the guard just kept filming him until the train got to the next stop. It felt very awkward. I saw many signs of Koreans working very hard but most likely not making a lot of money in the process. I told my aunt about the amazing plastic clip I saw being sold on the subways that came in the shape of a carrot that you could use to close bags (like opened chip bags or a cellophane bags). She then told me that she bought those before and they didn’t work well relative to the more expensive real ones you get in stores.
Cellphone capabilities seemed so much better in Seoul when compared with Toronto. Not only was cell signal available in the subways underground, I found it somewhat common to see Koreans on the subways watching TV on their cellphones. Not fair. Many of their cellphones are equipped with pull out antennas for watching TV. When I was using the washroom in Yeouido, the person in one of the stalls was doing his business and I could hear he was watching TV on his cellphone also. What was funny was I heard Ji Jin-hee’s voice and then recognized that the guy was watching the final episode of Dong-Yi that I just saw the night before. I felt like yelling out “전하 납시오!…” (His Majesty is entering!…) ^^. I saw a lot of people using Android Smartphones (in particular, the Samsung Galaxy S), iPhones and dumbphones (but even their dumbphones had TV capabilities). Rarely did I see any Blackberrys.
P.S. Happy New Year.
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