My Trip to Seoul, South Korea

Here are some photos from my trip to South Korea last month. I was only there for three days in order to renew my Japanese tourist visa, but it was enough time to get a taste of Seoul. My hostel, "Seoul Backpackers," was in a great location in the heart of the city. I did a good amount of walking around the shops and streets in the area where various temples and "palaces" were scattered here and there among the modern stores and restaurants. Seoul is especially beautiful at night. Unfortunately it was terribly cold when I was there, but I stayed out as long as I could. Although they don't really celebrate Christmas, there were some rather impressive light and decoration displays, which added to the usual elaborate array of lights coming from the buildings.

On the second day I decided to head toward the mountains and just see where I ended up. I hiked to the top of one peak, where there was an incredible view of the city, and then I continued down into a little town on the other side. Everyone I came across in Korea was friendly and helpful. I found that more people seemed to speak English (or were at least willing to speak English) than in Japan, and they were definitely more obvious about "gawking" at foreigners. People were generally not too shy to talk to me. When I was hiking up the mountain I came across many Korean military troops who were stationed at different posts along the way. I'm not sure what was going on or why they were there, but I felt a little awkward because they would immediately start poking their buddies and then grab their binoculars to stare. I would sometimes give them a little wave or say "Hello," and this seemed to really please them because they would sort of giggle and eagerly wave back with huge smiles on their faces.

The food in Seoul was delicious. I had a stir fry in a wonderful vegetarian restaurant I found, and a very tasty Italian dish on my last night. I also had some pastries and gelato, but my favorite treat was a sort of breaded pocket or pita that was wrapped with aluminum foil and served warm with what I think was a sesame seed honey filling. At night the streets are lined with hundreds of little shops that serve all sorts of food. It's a popular pastime for people to huddle around these "tents" to eat soup or noodles or skewers or kimchi or who-knows-what-else while they socialize and keep warm.