Korea – First Impressions
August 15, 2009
I expected Korea to be different from Japan in some ways, and similar to Japan in other ways. It’s really way more different than I expected.
There is one obvious similarity in that Seoul is very similar to Tokyo. Both are 24 hour cities with flashing lights everywhere, where businessmen and students party all night. But in this regard Seoul even seems more exciting than Tokyo. This could just be the initial culture shock for me, but I do think there’s a bit more to it than that. Right now I’m staying near a college, so all the nightlife around the area involves students. But this area seems to keep going later than most of the areas in Tokyo, or than any of the college towns I’ve been to in America or Japan. We got to our hostel around 8 yesterday, and when we left to get dinner around 9:30 (I’ll tell you why in a little bit), the manager said all the restaurants would be closed. But he was wrong.
I read before coming here that a lot of restaurants in Seoul stay open 24 hours, and this really does seem to be the case. We got a dinner of galbi, bulgogi, and kimchi at a fantastic Korean barbecue place, and when we passed in on the way back to our hostel around midnight it was still open, as were all the other restaurants, and this wasn’t even in the hub of the area. Basically, from what I can tell so far, Seoul really is a 24 hour city. Tokyo is often described as one, but it really isn’t. It seems like a more accurate description of Seoul. (To be fair, I really haven’t been in Tokyo or Seoul long enough to see what each individual area in the cities are like in terms of this.)
The food in Seoul is incredible, as I expected it to be. So far I’ve had delicious Korean barbecue, an insanely huge and filling lunch of bibimbap, glass noodles, and vegetable pancake that my friend and I finished all of even though we were full about halfway through, and a greasy, hot vegetable pancake that I bought from an old woman in a market. I keep consoling myself by saying that I’ve already lost weight in Japan, that we’re walking a lot here, and that most of what I’m eating is vegetables.
As for our hostel, well, the experience hasn’t been so great. We got picked up at the station by a really grumpy guy from New Jersey yesterday who wouldn’t make conversation. He showed us the “private twin bed room” that I had reserved, which was essentially just a bunk bed in a closet. We got him to put us in the dorms, since they were more spacious and cheaper, while the whole time the manager, who I’ve never seen doing anything, kept calling me Harry Potter (which I’ve gotten a lot in Japan). It took about an hour for our receipts to be made when we paid.
Later that evening, we ran into another guy from LA who was staying at our hostel. He said he had found out about a better, cheaper one that he was planning on switching to, and that he had gotten a refund. We looked it up and made reservations there, asking the manager to give us a refund after we had asked the grumpy guy first. Then the grumpy guy got angry at us because he had switched us into the dorms and now by leaving the hostel we were apparently insulting him. Basically, I’m glad that we’re moving hostels.
That really hasn’t soured my experience in Korea though. I don’t think anything possibly could. People are really nice here in a very different way from how people are nice in Japan, the food is tasty and cheap, and the city is full of energy. The fact that we don’t like the hostel has just made us stay out more, which I’m completely fine with.
