Seoul Train

I spent last weekend on a quick holiday to Seoul. One of my friends was interested in going there, so we got a group of 4 together and decided to go just a few weeks ago. The only thing I really wanted to do was see the DMZ (demilitarization zone) between the border of North and South Korea. For some reason I've always had a fascination with North Korea (and in general other countries on George W's "axis of evil").

The DMZ tour was pretty good - we got to see some of the famous things like the tunnel the North Koreans dug that was discovered by the South Koreans in 1978. We also went to an observatory where we could actually see into North Korea. Our tour guide was a South Korean woman and while she gave some background on the many things that North Korea uses as propoganda to oppress their people, she was giving us some South Korean propoganda as well. For instance, when asked why the tunnel was so small (in height) she said that the North Koreans were shorter than the South Koreans because they are malnourished. While that might very well be true, I highly doubt there have ever been any studies done on the height of North Koreans as compared with South Koreans. And on and on it went like that. I would have liked to have gone to Panmunjon, which is the actual place where South Korean and US military stand facing the North Koreans at the actually border, but unfortunately tours are only given during weekdays, and we were only there for Saturday and Sunday.

Other highlights of Seoul included some interesting palaces, and some really great food. The traditional South Korean dish is called kimchi, which is basically cabbage with some spices on it. And the drink of choice is called soju, which is similar to rice wine. We ate a lot of street food - enough to make Anthony Bourdain jealous.

We also went to a show called Nanta, which is where the actors use cooking to perform and make rhythms (in a similar way to Blue Man Group). We got tickets to the show a few hours before the performance started, and we were given front row seats. Part of the show involved choosing some audience members to help out on stage, and they decided to pick me. I got to eat some soup alongside another audience member, who was a Japanese woman. The basic idea was that the cooks had made the soup and wanted to know if it was good. The Japanese woman next to me kept saying , "Oishi desu, oishi desu" which is Japanese for "it's delicious, it's delicious". The whole show was based around throwing a wedding, and lucky for me I got to be the groom, so at the end of the show the large slide projector in the back of the stage showed a picture of me and my Japanese bride smiling. Supposedly they're going to email me a picture of this, which I hope they do because it was absolutely amazing to see my grinning face on the huge screen of this show. Good times.

We also spent a lot of time shopping, which isn't usually my thing, but I happened to have travelled with some people who have good fashion sense, so they helped me pick out some good things for me and for some gifts.

Overall we liked Seoul - friendly people, good food, pretty easy to get around and use the subway, and best of all they had numerous Dunkin' Donuts stores - quite a treat for me!