Serious Travel Article (STA) 5: 24 Hours of Seoul

Like many former university students, I used to have to make a long commute back to uni every September. But unlike most other students, last September, I came back via Korea.

A fictionalization of the bridge linking Incheon International Airport to the South Korean Mainland. It's one hell of a bridge!

Sitting on the plane (I hate planes), I decided that I would explore until I collapsed to make up for only having a day there. My first experience of Korean cuisine came on the plane, a bowl of rice, pickled something, meat, vegetables and hot chilli sauce. All in tightly sealed packages, and separate from one another. I opened the first package but before I knew it, the Korean lady sitting next to me decided I needed help, she mixed all the ingredients together along with the meat (which thrilled me as a vegetarian), handing it back to me with a big cheesy grin on her face. I took one bite (I was really hungry) and retched, still starving I drank my seaweed soup (surprisingly nice) and tried to eat my salad. As much as I wanted to eat it the lettuce and cheese was stuck to a thick slice of moist ham. Undeterred I wrangled with my salad, trying to prize the cheese from the ham, but as much as I pulled and strained, it was to no avail, the ham and cheese had fused into some sort of salad goblin, I gave my full tray back to the trolley dolly and went back yo trying to learn some Korean. Five hours later I had managed to memorise 3 phrases, Gamsa Hamnida (Thank you), Anneyong Asaeyo (Hello) and Anneyong Gasaeyo (Goodbye).

 Armed with these and a map of the Seoul Tube system, I escaped the clutches of my over controlling hoteliers and headed for central Incheon, the Croydon of South Korea. My tube stop was an ultra modern underground labyrinth, complete with travelators, chrome fittings and cavernous chambers. It was also totally empty. This part of Incheon was like an ultra modern ghost town, complete with concrete and steel monoliths, and underground realms, the pace of development in the far east seems worlds away from the recession of the west. The train was as ultra modern as the station, flashier than a bag of dead mice, faster too. I was soon in Incheon's city centre. It had all the neon excitement you would imagine in a far eastern city, but unexpectedly it had large perpendicular poles with speakers at the top, all blasting out Barry White songs. Perplexed, I continued on to the city, there were piles of garbage everywhere, I had always imagined South Korea as a vary clean country, but here I was walking around what was essentially a tip in a modern cosmopolitan city with strip bars named Boobi Boobi and Manchester United mega stores. 

Hills in Seoul at dusk

I later worked out the Barry White poles were air raid sirens, to be used just in case North Korea decided to flatten its southern neighbour. Bored of Incheon, I decided to head into Seoul proper, I left behind ultra modern Incheon and climbed aboard the ageing transport network of Seoul. I was starting to arouse suspicions, people started to ask if I needed any help, whether I was lost. I was delighted to go along with it, I got a free tour guide to an alien city.

 I got off In the middle of Seoul, with the intention of finding some disgusting Korean food, cat juice, tightly caged dog steak or the holy grail, sannakji. Sannakji is possibly the most awful food ever conceived, live octopuses are served on a plate while a chef cuts off the tentacles, the customer eats the tentacles while still moving. I guess PETA aren’t a big force in Korea, although apparently a lot of people die eating Sannakji due to the suckers affixing themselves in the throat. Its quite nice to see a fairer fight when it comes to dinner. In my vein attempt to find some crazy Korean cuisine, I stumbled upon a bunch of drunken teenagers, I decided to join them. They spoke surprisingly good English for a bunch of random drunks, they wondered why I was there, I must have been the only Caucasian outside the airport. 

Seriously Korean's, why cant you kill your food before you eat it? Cultural sensitivity can lick my balls, Sannakji is Fucked!

For a nation technically still at war, the people I met didn’t seem too concerned about their paranoid nuclear neighbour. At any moment Kim Jong Il and his team of super friends could shell some part of the South. I doubt the bunch of drunkards I met last night aren’t as laid back about the future of the Korean Peninsula with the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. I wish I could have stayed longer in this friendly city of 20 million people. I only hope next time I visit Korea, Seoul wont be a war ravaged relic.