8 hours in Seoul

Chinese Characteristics: Everything seems like its going to be normal and then all of a sudden it gets weird, unexpected, funky, and mind blowing. The food, the city, the language; everything has these Chinese Cast of Characteristics...but my apartment is amazing, more of that to come later....

So after my buddy whom I am working with, Dave Kellogg (aka: Brusie) and I left Seattle, 11 hours later we landed in Seoul, Korea (8:00pm Seoul Time). We were supposed to check into the hotel inside the airport so we would have to leave, but we got so excited we went though customs and then realized we couldn't get into the hotel until six the next morning. We checked or carry-on items into a locker and decided to rock Seoul til 9 the next morning when our plane took off!

We headed down town in a bus and got off at the Dongdaemoon Market, which was our first introduction to Asian markets. Weird smells, foods, and bootleg Adidas outfits, were everywhere as we strolled thought the endless sea of yellow pop-up tents. We ended up eating three different meals that night riding the metro or walking, seeing all the sites we could, and passing out for an hour next to this awesome structure called the south gate, even though it looks more like a temple.

Even though we got a little shut-eye, we were in a park with about 20 homeless people and one guy was really wasted. The wasted Korean bum was just yelling at everyone, so we ended up sleeping with one eye open and eventually couldn't take it anymore so we went to another market, which was still happening, by the way this is now around two in the morning. We strolled though the Namdaemun Market where not as many people were out but all the shops were open and the food was still being cooked and sold.

Further wandering led us to this brightly lit street where we were every five feet someone new offered us to enter their "business club" for the three-step program.

Step 1- Beer
Step 2- Beer and Whiskey
Step 3- Massage

It was getting around 3:30am and we needed to start figuring how to get back to the airport. Just when we thought we didn't have a clue, we stumbled upon a sign for the airport express bus, which didn't start running until 5:30, so we had about two hours to kill.

We looked across the street and saw a restaurant that looked decent so we went in and there was only one other table full, but we were hungry and it was late so we said what the heck. We were having an amazing meal, which consisted of meet on a charcoal grill that was in the center of our table, veggies, kamchi, soup, green tea, beer, black beans, some noodle dish, and then the tables started filling up with very beautiful Korean women, which up until that point we hadn't seen any. Then we realized we were close to the "massage" strip of town and they probably all just got off work.

After a wonderful meal we made it back to the airport in time to catch our flight and then it was off to China!