Summer of 2018 - South Korea

The link to the pictures are available at South Korea 2018 .
 

This year's trip is to South Korea. Why Korea? you may ask, as did many of our friends!!

Well, the short story is the influence that digital era holds in terms of accessibility to televised stories and lifestyle of far away countries.

The idea of "Why not South Korea?" stemmed from one such televised drama Veena watched.

After much contemplation Vivek agreed to go to Chennai and get the Visa. Had he known early on that it would involve 2 trips to Chennai, this trip would have never happened.

With Nandita having appeared for her CBSE board exams, a degree of uncertainty prevailed due to the possibility of a reexamination in Mathematics.

As most things do, this eventually played out favorably and the trip was on.

Another late night flight to Hong Kong and a layover long enough to savor a global cuisine for lunch made it worthwhile.

Day 0:

Landed by 8 pm and took the cab to our apartment located in Dongguk University, Junggu district. The place was windy and cold b/w 5 to 15 c. Did some quick shopping for dinner and breakfast, cooked  noodles for dinner and crashed for the evening.

Day 1:

The next morning we woke up by 9, had some bread and eggs for breakfast and we headed out to by 11 to the spring blossom festival by the Hann river behind the Korean National assembly.

Spent a good 2+ hours at the fest. It was a struggle to find a reasonable place to eat. We ended up having some Thai food. Later that evening we found a more authentic Korean place for dinner where we savored some delicacies.

Over all it was a good day where we figured out the logistics of the cities, the subway, currencies, food and language.

Day 2:

Korea has us in awe, the subway system and the over all development has us sold. The people are friendly and cordial.

The day started with a light breakfast at our apartment and we headed to
Gyeonbokgung Palace taking the metro. The palace in itself is ok and pale in comparison to the some of the ones we have seen around world. The beauty of the cherry blossoms and the sunny day made for a memorable morning. We took plenty of pictures and started to think about food.

I was determined to find the place called Sindang-dong Tteokbokki street in Seoul for some authentic Korean food and it was a memorable adventure. Dragging the kids through the streets through the local market Street we were lost in a area of Seoul that sold everything from old washing machine, chairs and tools.

Finally we gave up and got into the first restaurant we could and unfortunately for us it was an all Korean crew and menu.

Another customer helped us in finding a items we could have that did not have beef and octopus. I randomly pointed to a line on the menu and asked for it. It turned out to be a delicacy of rice and veggies called bibimbap. This was a small shop and despite our struggles with ordering food it turned out to be a experience that was well worth it. The old lady at the restaurant was jovial and laughed through our communication issues.

The kimbap was our soul food and we pretty much had it at every meal. It was like a sushi roll wrapped in Sea weed.

After lunch we headed to an old part of town called the Bukchon Hanok village where we spent the rest of the day.

Day 3:

The day started off slow and we had a quick breakfast and headed out by 12 noon. By now we were masters of the metro and the system the Koreans have is impressive.. have I said that enough?
The first place we went to was to the Gwangjang Market. The place was our induction into Korean culture. The market was full of food stalls and goodies that could be bought, we just picked a stall and sat down. The host knew an little bit of English and that's all that we needed. We savored mongbean pan cake(bindaetteok) some spicy noodles and hand made noodles soup.

Over all we loved the food. After that we visited some of the under ground stores at the metro station and spent a few hours shopping and snacked on a few more fried foods.

From there we headed to the Myeong-dong market. This was a upscale marketing neighborhood and by 5 the whole place was buzzing with makeshift food stalls and activities. We spent a few hours over there and headed back to the apartment by 6.

Day 4: The morning started very slow with a late breakfast and we headed out by noon. This was partly because it was raining and cold as well. The first stop was at the Samsung delight store. The place was cool with some displays of technology of the future. We wanted to visit the temple but given the weather preferred to be indoors.

Spent some time finding a place for lunch.  We walked around Ganganam after that. The rains had cleared and the place was becoming lively and buzzing with activity.

We even saw the poster for the Hindi movie Dangal in Korean. After walking around and soaking the sights of the place we headed to the Namzan tower, the drive up to the tower was lined with cherry blossoms and made for an amazing site. The tower itself and the ride to the top by in itself was just a commercial exercise.

We finished dinner and headed home by 11 pm.

Day 5:
This was our last day in Seoul. We had booked to travel to Busan on the ktx train at 12:30.

Our day started early as we want to go up to the Namzan tower and walk back to take pictures of the cherry blossoms and the landscape. We captured some of our best pictures of our trip during this time.

It was timed so we were back and could head to the station using the metro.

The train ride was relaxing and we reached Busan in under 3 hrs. The cab was waiting for us outside the station and it took us to the apartment situated in ha††*****

The apartment was right by the beach and was a beautiful place. We just got familiar with the surrounding that evening and took it easy. By 9 we decided to find a place for dinner and it was a struggle as the whole place was very touristy and expensive as hell. It was finally a combination of subway and some very expensive fish dinner.

Day 6:

The morning we took the metro to the Buddhist temple located in ..... The place was serene and beautiful.
It was time for lunch and the pattern that I noticed is that we are usually looking for lunch by 3 pm when most places wind down. The team split into 2 and one group had dumplings and the other ended up having an authentic Korean lunch.

Next we headed to the cultural village and spent some time walking around and taking pictures. That marked the end of the day, we wound up at the apartment for a rice dinner - Indian style. 

Day 7:

We headed to the Centum city Mall. Supposed to be one of the largest in Korea. The place was nice and typical of any shopping mall that I had seen. The best part of the trip was the food court. It had the best assortment all kinds of cuisine including Indian. Veena and Neetu went with what seemed like Japanese. Nishant had a Korean-American type of dish with steak, pasta and rice while I went for an all Korean specialty.

Kids wanted to spend some time at the beach, so Vivek and myself took the kids back to the apartment while the ladies continued shopping.

After resting for a bit we went to the beach town of ..... It was famous for the bridge that had a colorful display of lights. We headed back home for dinner, spent some time talking and retired for the day.

Day 8:

This was the day we were heading back and had to check out by 11. We logged our suitcases and hopped on the metro and headed to the airport.

In summary, Korean has a lot to offer and it changed our perception of it totally. A very well developed society with great infrastructure and friendly people. They received independence around the time India did, however they have left us far behind in development and growth.