Seoul! The last time I was here, it was a kind of an epic fail. This time, I was determined not to sleep through the entire trip.

After landing in Seoul, I took the longest bus ride to the city center. I’m somewhat surprised that Seoul doesn’t have some sort of rail service to the city center… However, this time, I got off at the correct stop, so that was a success. Rather than staying in Gangnam, I chose Myeong-dong, a very touristy area.

I unpacked a bit, took a nap (risky, I know), and wandered around the neighborhood a bit. I scouted out some interesting areas and eventually got hungry, and went to look for food.

The main attractions of Myeong-dong are shopping and food.

I somehow wound up at a Muji and bought some trash cans and place mats for my home… I felt like a default mainland tourist, lugging huuuuge boxes around #noregrets

As for the food stalls, there were things on sticks!

This!

Eggs cracked on a bread thing!

Lobster!

I came across a block that was completely filled with Korean fried chicken restaurants, so I grabbed a bite.

I was curious about what local climbing brands Korea had, so the next day, I wound up at a gear market outside of Jongno 5-ga station. You could literally find everything here. I haggled for, and bought some Petzl OK oval non-locking carabiners that aren’t sold in the states. I also found some sport wash at the Arc’teryx store, so I could do some laundry at the hotel (the room was starting to get ripe from all the dirty climbing clothes)…

Afterwards, I stopped at a 7-Eleven and got a giant bottle of Yakult 🙂

And basically just wandered around for the rest of the day…

City hall was neat.

Some public art.

Korean BBQ!!! and dessert at Osulloc Tea House

Neat.

Must’ve been a PITA to install

So, in Asian cinema… whenever there’s drama or conflict between two characters, it’s usually set on top of a high rise building. I always thought it was silly, because the camera would be sweeping around, showing off the skyline, and it’d always be windy or something… Well, my hotel room gave me views of a few rooftops, and it turns out that it’s pretty real!

Each day, there would just be a continuous cycle of people going up to the roof to talk, trade secrets, show off their new firearms, smoke, and do miscellaneous illegal things. These two were probably insider trading.