In SEOUL!!!

We left Sokcho for Seoul at 9:20am this morning on a coach with a bit of rain. I slept most of the way of course hehe while Som barely got any sleep.

Getting to Seoul on the coach was easy. However once we got off the bus the next step was to find our hotel. We decided to take the subway, thought that was going to be hard but once again was pretty easy because we didnt have to change lines. The directions that was given to us was pretty clear, once we got to Myeong Dong station get off and take Exit 9. There were no lifts to get out of the subway so Sommy had to carry our big lugguage up the rather steep stairway, after much sweating he got to the top.

The directions told us that the hotel was about 40m away from Exit 9 BUT which way??? We didn't have a glue. We asked a Korean lady on the street and she did not have a glue where the hotel was or the street. Then we asked another Korean middle age man and man was he helpful! Thankfully he spoke some English. Dressed in the proper work pants and shirt holding an umbrella he tried so hard to help us find the hotel. He called a taxi for us and asked the taxi if he knew the hotel. Standing there in the light rain for about 5mins as him and the taxi tried to decide where the hotel might be but to no luck, we had to let the taxi go.

We did say that we'll just walk around and that he should probably go back to work BUT no he insisted on helping us. He just kept on asking other locals if they knew the hotel some gave us wrong directions so we were walking back and forth. By this time my Sommy was pretty wet and the man too as he offered me his umbrella and he carried my luggage.

Eventually we found the hotel inside an alley! Believe it or not it was very close to Exit 9 but we just went the wrong direction! and yep the man was with us all the way, we would be so lost without him! I had my suspicions when we got to the hotel that maybe he was a tour agent or something and tried to get business from us but no not at all, when we found the hotel there was just relief on his face and a smile and he said his goodbye and left us. We just kept on saying "thank you". I am til now still amazed how he stayed so focused on helping us without wanting anything in return. There really is very kind people out there, we hope to bump into him again so that we can at least shout him to lunch or something but that's probably unlikely. From todays experience we will now be more helpful when we see lost tourist back at home

So our thoughts about Seoul so far? We are supposedly in the heart of the fashion district in Seoul but we are not really seeing that. Fashion is not outrageous as we thought it would be. I was so keen on finding a shopping centre/mall and after almost an hr of walking around we did not even find one shopping centre! We thought we found one called Lotte Mall but when we got there it was a commercial building! So disappointing!

We had KFC for lunch. Yeah we are suppose to avoid chicken but we were getting very hungry and I didnt want Korean and didnt want to battle with the language in trying to order something. Not as tasty the KFC price is not too much of a difference to back home. Serving was pretty small tho.

We came back to the hotel and rested a little as I was getting dizzy. Then headed back out for dinner. We had Korean BBQ it was basically beef with chopped onions and garlic on the side and this almost kimchi style salad. That was pretty much it, very basic its not the like the wide variety we have back at home at Charcoal Mine in Parramatta!
And this meal ended up costing us about AU$31! Oh plus two bottle of coke and "sa-ke" which taste like methylated spirit! yuck! And yeah as we thought we finished our meal, got up to pay the restaurant guy tells us to sit back down....I said to Som oh they must be giving us desert or they will come to get the bill from the table. What came out was a bowl of noodles, but this is not the hot noodles we are use to...its COLD noodles kimchi flavoured! Oh my gosh I almost fainted as I was full already and really felt that if we didn't eat it we would offend them. So down our throat it went slowly....eww cold noodles was not very appetising. Damn forgot to take camera with us so sorry no photos.

Oh forgot to mention that the city is not pretty as I imagine to be, the streets are pretty dirty and congested. We feel a bit glusterphobic right now. Tomorrow going to walk more and sightsee the place a bit more - hopefully we'll have more luck finding the shopping malls Ney I'm trying to get to Daejumgum Theme Park, it looks easy on the map but god knows if it is easy!

Okies thanks if you manage to read this to the end I'm sure we'll have more stories to tell tomorrow!