1. Foreigners see Itaewon.

-1^C

Partly cloudy but the snow has melted and all is dry.

This weekend we went off to Seoul to explore the place and if time do a few touristy things. We arrived in Seoul on Saturday around 2pm, from there we went straight to Itaewon to see if we could secure some cheap accommodation (I’ve learnt that one must get in as early as possible on a Saturday to secure a place). When I went there the lady who knows me (sort of) finally had a revelation.. all this time I’ve been telling her I’m from Australia and it mustn’t have sunk in, but when I told her this time she was very surprised! She kept on saying things like “ohhhh hoju good!” and smiling for no other apparent reason than the fact that I was from Australia. Anyway, I paid for the two rooms and then went off to get my hair cut, this was after all Itaewon, the most western side of Seoul there is. It stands to reason that I could get a haircut here and not end up looking like Confucius, Bruce Lee or Pikachu. Thankfully, I was right.

After that was all secure we had some Starbucks and set about looking around the place. It didn’t take long as most of Itaewon consists of one main strip of western goodness. It wasn’t long after that our throats were dry and we went in search for beer. We tried a few different places all which seemed ok from the outside but then wasn’t all that once inside. A place called RocknRoll that played only bad RnB music. A place called Cheers which had funny names for shots of alcohol but didn’t know how to make them. A place called “Oasis – the place you were thinking of”; where most of the women there sat and watched The Bachelor on a big screen and a can of Coke set you back $5! There were numerous other places which I can’t recall off the top of my head at the moment.. but once Pav and Shelly get back from Seoul they’ll be sure to upload some pics. The night ended quite early (around 1am) with Pav getting lost for a while and then rejoining us later on.

The next morning however we were awake at 10am and off to see the view from N Seoul Tower. A memorable quote from Shelly: “Its hard to grasp that the population of Australia is within my eye reach”. We went up there and had a really nice lunch at the restaurant.. well the main dishes weren’t all that special but the buffet was fantastic! I never thought I’d be so excited about Salmon and even more so of raw Tuna! The way they did this Tuna was like nothing I’ve ever eaten before.. it didn’t taste raw at all! I think I deciphered how to cook it though, all I need now is a decent Tuna steak. After we had seen all there was to see at the tower we were off to the secret Gloria for a well earned coffee.

After staying there for a little while I left Pav and Shelly and came back to Sangdong, while they stayed an extra night. I think they said something about being back tonight or maybe tomorrow night.

Well that’s all for now folks.. I hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine over there!