A Day Out with Mindy

My friend Andrew's mom, Mindy, is visiting this week and yesterday Andrew invited me to go out with them for the day. We had a really nice time and it was fun getting to know Mindy. Mindy is staying at the Courtyard Marriott in Seoul and I met them at the hotel yesterday morning. The hotel was very nice, it was much fancier than a typical Courtyard Marriott and it was on top of a large mall and an E-mart. The best part of all was that Andrew surprised me with a watch that his mom had brought with her for me. Andrew's dad works for a watch company, Armitron, and Andrew has this one particular watch from his dad's company that I really like. The one Mindy brought for me is the same one, just in different colors. Also, Armitron is the official watch of the New York Yankees! Here is a picture of my awesome watch:

Mindy wanted to take the City Tour of Seoul, which is basically a coach bus that you buy a ticket for and it travels in a loop to about 20 different sights around Seoul. You can get off at any stop that looks interesting to you and then just get back the next city tour bus that comes. Also, with the headset in your seat you can hear about the facts and history of each stop. We traveled around on the bus for about 30 minutes and we decided to get off at the Namsan Seoul Tower stop. The N Seoul Tower is one of the many things on my "Korea to-do" list so I was happy to be able to go. Also, we lucked out with the weather being sunny and beautiful so we had a perfectly clear view of the entire city.

The N Seoul Tower is not the tallest tower in Seoul, but it's still a staple of the Seoul skyline standing at 1,574 ft. above sea-level. Mindy bought tickets for all of us and we stood in a short line and then took the elevator up. The view was breathtaking! The observation floor is cylindrical so we had a 360 degree view of Seoul. It was amazing! The coolest part of the view is that the windows were all labeled with major cities around the world at the approximate position of where they would be located. Here is a picture of the bottom portion of the tower, and what the view looked like from the observation floor.



Afterwards, we jumped back onto the next city tour bus and we looked at some more sights in passing. We thought about stopping at one of the many palaces but by this time it was almost 4 and they all closed at 5. We got off at the Namdaemun stop because Mindy wanted to see one of the famous markets. Neither Andrew nor I had been to Namdaemun yet so I'm glad we went. Namdaemun is one of the most famous traditional, open-air markets in Seoul. Literally meaning "south gate", it's located very close to the historical south gate of Seoul. The market was awesome, but very overwhelming! Many, many street blocks are filled with thousands of vendors selling everything from live squid to Korean souvenirs to lingerie! It's literally one-stop shopping for the people of Seoul. Here's a few pictures of Namdaemun market.


Mindy reminds me of Grandma Rhoda in many ways. At 57, she was way ahead of Andrew and me everywhere we went and she was determined to make the most of every minute of the day! We were definitely hungry by the time we got to Namdaemun so Mindy thought it was time for a little nosh. We shared a scallion pancake and some potato tempura from a street vendor which hit just the right spot! We zipped through the market pretty fast but I definitely plan on returning to do some gift shopping and such. I did buy one thing though, Mindy and I both bought Korea swimcaps. Nothing like showing a little Korea pride when I train for another triathlon this summer!

Afterwards we decided to grab some dinner and so we thought we'd try this noodle and dumpling place that was recommended in Mindy's travel guide. The restaurant was located in Myeongdong, the shopping district, and it's very famous for it's noodles. I have to say though, it was nothing like what I was expecting. It was this tiny, hole-in-the-wall place, and we had to wait in line to be seated for about 15 minutes. The food was very good though, only 4 different options, all of which were the same price, 7,000 won, which is about 6 bucks and change. I ordered the soup and Mindy and Andrew ordered both the dumplings and the soup to share. Each portion was huge! My bowl of soup was bigger than my head and I barely made a dent in it. It was a chicken broth with the restaurant's famous noodles and a couple of dumplings mixed in with some ground chicken. Even though the restaurant had take-out service, they refused to give me a to-go container to take the rest of my soup back to the dorm. I could've heated it up and had it for lunch today! Andrew and I even looked up on his phone how to say in Korean "Please wrap it up, we are poor college students" but they still said no. I was very upset, but oh well, Korea is not exactly known for their customer service. Mindy treated to dinner which was very nice of her.

We strolled through the hustling and bustling Myeongdong for a bit before heading back. We walked by a street vendor selling these huge creampuffs and she was filling them right in front of us! Of course we couldn't resist, so we shared one for dessert and it was delicious. We looked around some more and then got on the train. It was so much fun spending the day with Mindy and Andrew, it was nice to be around a mom for a bit, but really it just made me miss my wonderful Mom even more.

E-mart

Today I needed to do a little grocery shopping and since we always go to Grand Mart I thought I'd try something new. E-mart is the biggest retailer in South Korea and it is known around here as a "mega-store". It's kind of like a Walmart Supercenter, in that it carries everything from clothes to electronics to groceries. I went to the one in Yongsan, and in my opinion, it's much nicer than Walmart. Everywhere you turn there is an E-mart employee ready to help you, and if they don't speak English then they go and find someone who does. Also, they were giving away many free samples which made shopping on an empty stomach much more enjoyable.

My friends and I have been cooking a lot more because we've quickly realized that eating out for multiple meals a day is not only unhealthy, but also a big waste of money. We haven't been that adventurous with our cooking yet, but we're working on it. The types of things we've been making are basically sandwiches for lunch, scrambled eggs and egg sandwiches for breakfast, and usually fried rice with some meat or vegetables in it for dinner. We've also made some different types of stir-frys and we're going to try pasta this week. We'd like to make more but the kitchen in our dorm does not have any ovens, just stovetops. We were told that Koreans don't use ovens that often to prepare meals and that's why we don't have any. So we've been getting creative with the microwave and stove! If you know any simple recipes that we could throw together, let me know!

E-mart is much bigger than Grand Mart, which I think I've mentioned is our local grocery/department store in Sinchon. E-mart had a much bigger variety of everything, including a huge bakery, a fish market, and a large produce section. Apples, cereal, and cheese were on my list, and I didn't deviate from my list because E-mart was a bit of a hike from Sinchon and I didn't want to have to carry many bags. I also got some dish soap because with all of the residents of SK Global House sharing one big kitchen, the pots and pans have been getting a little grody. All of the items I got were a little bit cheaper than at Grand Mart, but not by much. Produce is incredibly expensive here because all the rain during the monsoon season has been bad for the crops. I bought a bag of 7 small to medium-sized apples and it cost me 6,900 won, which is about $6. I even saw a watermelon on sale for 35,000 won, which is over 30 bucks! The cheese and cereal are both considered "Western" items so they too were expensive. The pack of cheese I bought (individual slices just like American cheese, but they don't call it that here!) was 4,980 won, which is about $4.50. Lastly, the cereal almost killed me. Most Koreans really don't eat cereal here, or any "breakfast item" for that matter, so how anyone can wake up and have a big bowl of ramen and squid soup is beyond me! So, after unsuccessfully trying to make my beloved Cinnamon Toast Crunch last more than a week, I needed to buy some cereal. I bought a mid-priced box of Post cranberry and granola flakes which cost 6,950 won, which is a little over 6 bucks.

So it wasn't the cheapest grocery store trip, but all necessary items for an American college student living in Seoul! It was fun checking out a different grocery store and a different part of the city, but I always forget that once I leave Sinchon, I'm no longer surrounded by as many international students and therefore people definitely look at me more. As I mentioned in my last post, it really doesn't bother me as much as it did before. Also it's occurred to me that when I pass newborns and little babies in the stores and on the subway, I could possibly be one of the first Caucasians that they've ever seen. I know that's a strange thought, but being a foreigner (and an obvious one at that) in such a big city, these are the types of things that go through my mind.

Another cool thing about going to E-mart was that the subway line to get there, line 1, uses a Korail train, or a "KTX". The KTX is a newer model train that travels at a much higher speed than the conventional trains. I tried to read about it at the subway station while waiting for the train, but much of the sign was in Korean. An interesting fact about the KTX is that the train is designed to look like a shark. I was not at the top of the platform, so I couldn't actually see it, but here's a picture I found that resembles the picture on the KTX info board I was reading from: