andyhwaiting

My uncle and 3rd aunt came over later that night and we all had dinner at home. I’m not a picky eater so just a bowl of rice and 1 반찬 (side dish) is fine with me. I can eat a bowl of rice and just 금 (sheets of kelp) or 두부 (tofu) with some 간장 (soy sauce) and be content. When I was little, one of my favourite dishes was water poured over rice with a small bowl of soy sauce with sesame seeds. I would have one spoon of watery rice and then dab the tip of my spoon in the soy sauce and eat it in the same mouthful. I don’t particularly like 찍개 (Korean style soups) either. I think Koreans usually have to have some kind of soup with their meals. On that night I ate rice, 깍두기 (pickled radish squares) and what was left over of the gangpungi the night before. After finishing dinner, I told my relatives that I was going out to visit the Namsan Tower . My uncle thought that perhaps my aunts weren’t taking good care of me thus my wanting to leave and go somewhere at night but that so wasn’t the case....

After leaving Seoul City Hall and Plaza, I took Line 1 down to Seoul Station and then transferred to Line 4 and took it to Hoehyeon Station with the intentions of checking out Namdaemun Market. I should mention that one of things I noticed about Seoul’s subway system is that it seemed really well heated, almost too well heated. Every time I entered a subway station I would always get really warm and need to buy a drink or equip myself with one before hand to cool down. I think part of it was because I was always constantly moving and then wouldn’t realize how warm I was until I stopped moving, but I also think that Koreans are just use to having a warmer body temperature... or you could say that Canadians are better at tolerating the cold. At first that may seem like an obvious statement that Canada is colder but I didn’t think I would feel that way as I always thought that the weather between Toronto and Seoul was very similar. When I arrived at my aunt’s place yesterday, the first th...

Having a super early arrival time in Korea turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it was the perfect way to get adjusted to the time difference and over jetlag. In fact, I didn’t suffer any jetlag once I got to Korea. Being up all day on the first day, I had no troubles falling asleep at night and awoke the next morning on Day 2 around 5AM having had a good nights rest. While my mom and aunts had their Korean breakfast, I had my little yogurt, banana and orange juice meal of my own. One of the things I noticed about Korean household washrooms is that they are usually equipped with a drain in the middle of the floor. I think its mostly because before washing machines became the norm, Koreans grew up hand washing a lot of their clothes on the washroom floor using big round tubs (like the tubs they use to make kimchi) and washing boards. Heck, even with a washing machine, I found my aunt still washing certain clothing the old fashion way. My aunt’s place was like this also and thus be...

Right across the street from Gyeongbokgung and Gwanghwamun is Gwanghwamun Square . I think I first saw Gwanghwamun Square in pictures during one of the World Cups where there was a sea of red shirts surrounding the statue of King Sejong and spilling out on to the streets. More recently, I saw Gwanghwamun Square featured in one of the action sequences during the KBS drama Iris . You’ll probably noticed this as a repeating pattern through my blog whereby I first saw something or got the inspiration to visit somewhere in Seoul from watching a Korean TV show, drama or movie. Gwanghwamun Square, is just that, a square block (or more accurately, a rectangular block) defined by 4 busy streets on all sides. The contents of the square transforms depending on the season. During the summer the square contains a large flower bed and during the winter, a portion gets converted into an ice rink. The constants of the square though are 2 statues commemorating 2 historical figures from Korea’s past. Al...

So after my aunt saw me to Dongnimmun Station, I headed for Gyeongbokgung which is one of the Royal Palaces in Seoul. I found that much of Seoul’s subway system was almost identical to how I remembered Tokyo’s. All you have to do is swipe your T-Money card over the reader when entering the station and always remember to swipe out when you are leaving the station or you’ll end up paying a lot. When swiping out, it will display how much you have remaining on your card. I found Seoul’s subway service to be very excellent and extremely affordable relative to Toronto. My informal gauge of how clean subway services are is by using the washrooms and I found them to be very clean at all stations I went to. One of the funny things I noticed about public washrooms in Korea is that sometimes instead of soap dispensers you will find communal bars of soap attached to a rod. All subways signs are in English and when riding the trains, the next station is announced in multiple languages including En...