Day 3 - Shopping in Sincheon

Day 3

Before I went out I borrowed an umbrella from the Bluguest House keeper. I asked him if he asked his cousin about that good bulgogi place that he knows, but he forgot to do that. So he asked if I wanted to go eat bulgogi with him next week.

My traditional Korean lunch (since I missed breakfast)

Today it rained the whole day so I went shopping indoors. To get to a place in Seoul is hard without being distracted by so many other things so I think I never made it to the center of Sincheon.

In the first street in Sincheon when coming from Hongdae I saw a music academy. I went inside and I met the head teacher there. It was a music academy for kids – piano, voice, violin. I got tea and we talked with help of my dictionary. I also met her daughter who is 1O, she can speak English.

On the way back down I passed a calligraphy studio. I went inside and one of the calligraphy experts wrote my name in a few different styles and he let me try it too. The rain made the paper a little wet :(

나탄스

The caligraphy expert - he also took a pic with his camera

I went into a supermarket and there was a coffee girl giving out free coffee. She was pretty and she couldn’t speak English. I didn’t have that much to say to her (I think she was not so smart actually). I asked her where the coffee was from and she said “Ethiopia” as if it was the first time in her life she said that.

Like I said, I went shopping. Across the street is the Hyundai department store. This is a big white building with black front doors. Inside there was a lot of activity going on. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, they were all white. I asked the 2 customer service girls where the man’s department was since the ground floor was very woman-oriented.

Every time I walked into a store, the employees greeted me in Korean and when I left they did the same. Also, their greetings were sincere and loud and that made the whole experience very likeable. I am not used to that since in Amsterdam that doesn’t really happen. What I also noticed is that many of the products are European, especially French and Italian.

On one of the floors I went to try on a few “coats for suits”. We were alone (the store was sort of separate from the other stores) and the girl who helped me was the highlight of the shopping center “Blazer” “Yeah” we said as we understood each other. Out of all the friendly people in the shopping center she was the best. She was pretty but besides that she was very sun-shiny. I don’t know how else to say it. She didn’t speak English but she really tried to understand me. I tried on a blazer and I thought it was too tight. “I want something more... stretchy”. “Stretchy” she repeated in a happy way. She knew that word :) It’s fun how little things like that are fun.

She helped me try on 2 stretchy blazers and I could not decide between them. We kept talking in Korean and somehow I knew what she meant without knowing the meaning of most of the words she said. Every time I put on a blazer she sort of arranged the back a little and she was always smiling as if she was having fun. Eventually I couldn’t choose between the black one which had a good “line” (she said that in English) and the light grew one which fit a little better but it was grey. Later on she said something I couldn’t understand. She called a translator who showed up in 2 mins. Then I spoke with her too and at some point the blazer girl said to the translator that I had a dictionary :) I didn’t know which one to buy so I didn’t buy anything.

Dinner – I asked a girl what was the best restaurant. She spoke native level English but as she was explaining to me that she was looking for a restaurant herself and she didn't know which one was good, her girlfriend came up from behind us and they started talking in Korean about what she was doing (with me). With no real advice I had bibimbap for dinner.

Actually, they did advice me to eat bibimbap because it was delicious. So why did they eat something else? :D

The Hyundai shopping center is connected with an airbridge to the U-plex building. At the bottom of that is an underground mall. It’s not that big though. And the U-plex is just a cheaper department store.

At night I walked around in Sincheon. So many places to go to, at every intersection you discover many more streets with lights and people. I must have walked 5 kilometers without getting an overview of the place!

Basically, the most common type of stores in Korea are: PC bang (internet cafe), Norebang (karaoke), coffee place (where they sell coffee and usually also sandwiches), restaurants (up to now the food is not as good as I thought it would be? Am I going to the wrong restaurants?), cosmetic store and phone store (but normal tourists can’t get a phone nr in Korea, or use a non-Korean IMEI).

On the way back I asked the way to Hongdae. This girl was wearing the most make up I had seen in Seoul. Her voice was like Nana’s voice in White Tears, I don’t know what personality that voice is related to but I think it sounded sort of high maintenance. But I guess she was nice.

Day 2 Hongik University, B Boy Theater & Hongdae

Day 2

I missed my 8 – 8.30 am guesthouse breakfast so I had my first Korean breakfast in a coffee place. I got a buzzer that vibrated when my sandwich was ready.

Although my guesthouse is good I think the sandwich I ate here tasted better

Walking around I came across a huge N shaped structure at the end of a beautiful street that was going up. It was the entrance to Hongik University. I walked under the structure to go to the campus.

Entrance to Hongik University. It specializes in art and I've been to the museum.

On my way back I met 3 Korean ppl, 2 guys and 1 girl. We started talking about some statue there and later about Korea, Korean, Amsterdam, music. The girl was friends with Korean singer K Will and her friends didn’t know this. Funny how I always make ppl realize things about others that they didn’t know yet.

The statue

After this it was time to visit the thing that had drawn my attention on the map since I first saw it: the B boy theater. Like many places, the theater was in the basement so I initially couldn’t find it. I asked some girl passing me where it was and she didn’t know. She checked my map, she checked her phone and she asked someone else for me. Then she thought she knew and she told me to follow her. Holding my map in her hand, we walked to the B boy theater.

The B boy theater is in a building shared by a few companies. The doorman (sitting at a desk) got up and showed me to the elevator. I said bye to the girl and I went to the basement. Downstairs was a wall with accomplishments of the dance crew and I could hear music coming from the next room. There was nobody where I was so I went to the music. It was the theater. I bowed to greet some ppl who noticed I entered. I asked if it was OK to watch and it was :)

I watched them practice for over 2 hours. They were doing all kind of break dance moves, later a girl came and she started practicing hip hop dance moves. More and more people came, there were almost 25 of them. Upstairs on top of the seats was a controller for the music, they kept running up the stairs to change the music and practice. It was at a really pleasant volume, I think it helped their concentration. Later I noticed that there were smaller groups within the group practicing together.

One guy tried to do some spinning move but he couldn’t prolong it. The 2 guys he was practicing with were a little better at it but they couldn’t do it that long either. A girl stood in front of the first girl and showed her how to do the dance move she was practicing. It’s funny how much I could tell about their communication without hearing them talk and just seeing them move.

When I left I thanked someone there (then I didn’t know he was the leader of the group) but he couldn’t speak English so well. So he got his friend Moon to talk to me and we talked about his dancing. Really friendly people for letting me watch their practice :)

At night I walked around randomly.

Hongdae (or very maybe Sincheon)

I went to a street in Hongdae. There were so many people in every street! In this one section of a street people perform outside. 2 groups were making music, separated by a wall so their sounds wouldn't get too mixed up. The singer was confident and made some girls laugh. They had a bigger audience then when I saw them the day before. One group had mainly girls in the audience but not such a big audience. The other group also didn’t have such a big audience, maybe 5 ppl.

Further on, there are many stores. Many of these play music to attract customers and cosmetic stores also have a woman standing outside with a microphone to get people to enter the store. They give you a shopping basket with something in it, I think you get that for free when you buy something else in the store.

There is so much to see and so much to do here! I wonder what else I’ll discover :)

Day 1 - Seoul!

Day 1

The city gives a good impression. When I got out of the subway I found myself in a big street with tall buildings. I immediately noticed people noticed me. They looked at me a bit longer than people would do in Amsterdam. Some make eye contact and seem to keep it, I should test their limit. One girl smiled at me as we passed. I quickly noticed I was the only non-Korean there. No tourists? Maybe it was the wrong area for that.

For dinner - I had to cook it myself in the restaurant! It must be a special type of restaurant because it was 21OOO for 3 things & side dishes. What I liked about this restaurant is that all the waiters loudly say "hello" when a new customer arrives.

A guy from the group of 4 next to me sat down in front of me and told me I should mix the dish with kimchi and other things in it with rice and seaweed. It seems like they had noticed my non-Korean eating style. Later I asked them about the gochuyang and one of the girls took one of her lettuce leaves, with her chopsticks she took some of my gochuyang and put on a piece of meat and then folded the lettuce. And then she said "Aaaah" and put it in my mouth. We all had to laugh, they are really nice people ;) ;) ;)

After dinner I walked around and I ended up in Sincheon, which is next to Hongdae. There I met the nicest girls on my first day in Korea. I asked them for directions back to Hongdae and they asked where I was from. We talked for 3O mins. They studied Chinese but they were surprised that I speak so many languages. One of them didn't have a bag but she held her books/papers in her hand (it was cold) so I told her she was still studying so late. I showed them some pics of a gay bar in Amsterdam & showed them the gay hand shake. We talked about body language, the tall girl seemed to already know that in Europe we touch more. She showed me some pics of her town (she studies in Seoul) but her boyfriend was on most of them so I couldn't see much of the town.

What was very different compared to Amsterdam was that I could keep the conversation going very easily.  In Amsterdam it would be sort of hard to have this kind of conversation with someone you haven't met before. I think Seoul is a big city but the people have a warm and friendly mentality.

Anyways, I later went in the direction they told me Hongdae was in (it was the right direction) but to me it felt it was exactly the wrong direction because I had been walking around too much.

Into the new world

Oh!

I'm learning the most beautiful language in the world, but when I hear Korean music I don't even try to find out what they're saying. The feelings are not in their words, but the feelings are in their voice.