Intro to Seoul part 1

First trip to Seoul, Part I

Seoul is one of the biggest cities in the world. According to Wikipedia, 10 million people reside in Seoul. If you look at the whole metropolitan area, it contains over 26.5 million people. That makes it the second largest metropolitan area in the world. HALF of all South Koreans live in the Seoul area along with over 600,000 international residents. There are a lot of people here.

So. Back to me. And three little boys. 

We had the opportunity to spend a week in Seoul while my husband did a week of training there (in other words, we'd be on our own for the most part). For our first foray into exploring Seoul, this was intimidating but I was up for a challenge. I mean, come on, the hotel has a "Discover Seoul" desk staffed with folks that will help you find stuff to do. How hard can it be?

Day One: 

Our car still hadn't arrived, so we took the train to Seoul. It took just over an hour, with one transfer to another line to get where we were going. Since we were going on the train, packing light was a necessity: stroller, purse, and two giant back packs. At the transfer station we discovered that there was no elevator to get to the other train, so my dear husband hoisted the double stroller, the baby in his car seat,  and a backpack up and down several flights of stairs while I followed with the other two boys and a pack. We didn't know at the time, but all transfers (so far) do not have an elevator. Some have a wheelchair lift, but the one that I tried wouldn't work, so we've resigned ourselves to just hoisting the stroller up and down the stairs ourselves.

We discovered that we were staying close to the IPark Mall, so we walked there. The IPark Mall is very nice, clean, and huge. In general, my boys aren't fond of shopping malls, but we discovered this one had a Huge children's cafe on the top floor and boys #1 and #2 suddenly fell in love with this mall. In order to avoid walking back to the hotel in the dark, we hopped in a taxi. However, the taxi driver seemed to have no idea where our hotel was. We even had some very kind passersby translate for us and the driver still tried to claim ignorance. He finally realized we weren't going to get out of his cab until he took us somewhere (it took a long time to get all of us and the stroller and bags into a cab, no way was I doing it twice), so off we went. Suspiciously, he went right to the exact place we wanted to go. 

The Giant Kids Cafe

At the Kids Cafe we saw the coolest fire extinguisher I've ever seen.

Day Two:

 We had been delighted to discover that they have Lush Cosmetics stores here too and decided to find our way to one. The "Discover Seoul" desk folks supplied us with an address for the store written in Hangul and a card in Hangul that gave directions back to the hotel. Prepared to face the taxi drivers, we departed. The Lush location was in another big fancy mall (a Shinsaege mall I think), and upon our arrival we discovered a large clothing market in the streets near the mall. We wandered for a while and saw all sorts of clothes, fur coats, socks (there are always lots of socks for sale), knock-offs of fancy clothes, tiny dog clothes, boiling pots of edible bugs, tiny sit-down restaurants in tents, toys, and treats. I have to confess that I'm always in too much of a hurry to get away from the edible bug vendors to take a picture. I'm not fond of the smell. However, here's a link to a page about edible bugs, and the picture of the beetle larvae looks like what most of them sell. I haven't looked too closely though. 

After lattes for the grownups and freshly blended strawberry juice for the boys (nothing but the best for the little princes -eye roll-), we ventured into the mall. Once again we found ourselves in a huge mall, this one even fancier than the first. I don't really understand the setup of the malls here, but they seem to be anchored by a huge department store type thing that covers many levels and contains many stores, all in a very open floor plan. For instance, there's a children's floor with different sections for stores like Gap and Colors of Benetton divided by aisles. And then there are other stores that aren't in the department store section. Sorry if that confused you more. I find it a bit perplexing too. 

Strawberry Juice!

A tiny part of the street market.

 

I have never actually purchased any clothing in a mall here. Each section is attended by one or several employees. They are dressed flawlessly and while they wait for shoppers they spend their time re-arranging merchandise, shifting it a millimeter at a time on the display table until they're completely happy with the placement. Should you wander into or simply pause too long near their section, they are instantly there to offer a smile and their assistance. You are not left to browse the racks alone, they hold up items they think you might be interested in, fetch appropriate sizes, and shadow you the whole time you're there. And sometimes, they stand very, very close to you. This can be very, very awkward if you are, lets say, trying to select the appropriate size of underwear. We did however manage to find the Lush store area and the sales ladies there were ever so nice and kindly respected a much more Americanized "personal space" rule. 

We went to the food court to eat. We had great choices but the boys were instantly enthralled by Sushi 360: a sushi place with a conveyor belt that carries little plates of food past you and you select what you want to eat. We had a great meal and the boys had fun making friends with the sushi chefs.

Yes, this is what a mall food court is like here.

Boy #2  is still working on his chopstick skills.

Day Three:

We explored the area around the hotel for a while and then decided to find the Coex Mall. Our taxi driver was a charming man who was happy to practice his English on the ride to the mall. He dropped us off at the World Trade Center and recommended that we enter the mall there. I was a bit confused but the kind guard at the desk showed me to the elevator, escorted us to the basement, and showed us the doorway into the underground mall. The boys and I wandered, enjoying the sights. Cotton candy eaten from cups with tiny forks, hall upon hall of interesting shops, an underground movie theater, and finally we found what we were looking for. The aquarium. Yep, an all-out aquarium in an underground shopping mall. Awesome. For about $20 the kids and I got in. I honestly wasn't expecting much, but we were treated to a full size aquarium with displays of local fish, a fish-tank-as-an-art-object display, sharks, giant turtles, manatees, seals, penguins, jelly fish, otters, beavers, pretty much everything except whale sharks. We had a great time! We did have a bit of trouble finding our way back out again though (there was only one tiny elevator in the whole aquarium). After eating at McDonald's (it seems to be cool here), I decided we should head back to the hotel. Except I couldn't find the secret entrance back into the World Trade Center. "No Problem!" I thought. "I'll just take a different elevator back up to street level.". Easier said than done. After wandering for the better part of an hour, I finally gave up and carried the stroller up two flights of stairs. Thankfully the taxi ride back to the hotel was uneventful. 

The smallest, slowest elevator ever.

Entrance to the aquarium.

 

To Be Continued...